New Beginnings
by savinanana
Summary: The Games and the rebellion may have ended, but the torture for Katniss' family hasn't. As Katniss and Peeta's daughter and son are thrown into the Games, Katniss and Peeta are forced upon a choice between two. One will make their children suffer. Another will make the rest of Panem suffer. Do Katniss' children have what it takes to survive, and can Katniss and Peeta save them?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:**

**The story is still a work in progress, though I will definitely finish the whole story.  
**

**I worked hard to perfect the plot so I hope everyone enjoys it. :)**

******Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.**

* * *

"Aim, and shoot."

I release my arrow. The squirrel drops to the ground. Clean shot through the eye, as usual. My mother smiles with a hint of pride in her eyes and tells me to retrieve the dead squirrel.

My mother and I share a lot of similar qualities, from looks to personality. I have her dark hair, but mine is pulled back into a loose ponytail which I flick to one side, right over my shoulder. My mother's now have streaks of white and gray in them, and is always pulled back into a braid. I've tried copying her braid, but it's too annoying and time consuming. I have her skill of archery, and her rebellious personality, which gives my parents a hard time. The only difference is our eyes. I have my father's blue eyes.

My mother started bringing me to the woods since I was small, since I insisted upon it. I was proven to be a skilled archer, but nowhere as good as my mother.

"Let's go home, Lily," my mother says, and we make our way back home.

After the rebellion, District 12 was rebuilt. All the arenas were destroyed, and we learn about the games in History lessons. Our numbers are growing and our economy getting better due to our first mayor after the rebellion, Mayor Camelon.

"Are we going to the graveyard to visit Aunt Prim and the others tomorrow?" I ask.

"Yes. It's reaping day tomorrow."

I nod. I know about reaping day. It used to be the day where the tributes were chosen to participate in the Games, but now it acts as a memorial, to remember the people who died. Even if I hadn't learnt about the original reaping day in school, I watch it from the tapes of Hunger Games I found in the attic a few months ago. I didn't even know it was there. I went to the attic to search for something and tripped over the box. I watch one tape per night. I can understand why the Capitol liked it so much.

"Do you think I have a chance of winning the Games if _I_ were reaped?" Because I do, I silently add in my mind.

"You're lucky enough you don't ever have to," she replies with a stiff look on her face.

I give a slight snort. What kind of an answer was _that_?

I arrive home and am welcomed by the smell of freshly baked cake.

"Hi Lily! Hi Mom!" my younger brother Ferrous greets us.

Ferrous is eleven years old and I am three years older than him. Like most siblings, we bicker a lot, but deep down we love each other. If he were reaped in the Games, I would volunteer to take his place.

"I baked a cake," he announces, and sets the cake down on the table.

"Without my help," my father comes out of the kitchen.

"Really? Then I'm afraid of eating it," I joke and pinch Ferrous' nose.

He smiles. "Like _your _cooking is any better."

I laugh and raise my arms up. "Alright, you win."

"Lily, do you want to help Ferrous and I ice the cake?" my father offers.

I shrug. "I don't know. Seems like an awful lot of work. I'd rather go up to my room and paint."

"You know, learning to ice cakes saved my life."

I know that. My parents explained everything about the Games and the rebellion. From the tapes I know they left out a lot of details, but I don't question them otherwise. They explained how the Capitol uses different types of torture. I know how my father got hijacked. I know why he sometimes has hallucinations. I know why my mother often wakes up screaming in the dead of night.

My mother gives me a slight nudge. "Go on."

I smile. "Painting can wait."

"Have fun," my mother tells us. My father leans in and kisses her.

Just like in the arena.


	2. Chapter 2

I can't say I look awful.

I'm wearing the exact same dress I've wore for three years. It's the only dress I own, bought for occasions like funerals and trips to the graveyard. It's a black dress with simple white patterns and a black ribbon. Luckily I haven't grown too much so the dress still comes down to my knees.

I wish our family didn't know so many dead people. It really lets me down. Even though I've watched the Games, I treat it as a TV show and I can't believe they're actually dead. It's like when you turn on the news and the news reporter reports a famous celebrity dies. Everyone knows it, including you, but you just can't accept the fact that they're gone.

We arrive at the graveyard and we put flowers on the dead's graves. My mother always looks older in the graveyard. The grief that falls over her face is extremely noticeable.

I look more closely and she that she's looking at the grave of Haymitch Abernathy. He was my parents' mentor, even after the Games. He was sort of like a grandfather to me. He died due to liver problems, caused by his heavy drinking. He died when I was ten.

"She's just like you, sweetheart. Just like you."

My father puts an arm around my mother and they share a faint smile. They're both lost in memories.

I didn't know many of them personally, so I don't have much sentimental feelings. My parents rarely bring them up, but I was interested in their history. Part of the reason why I was tempted to watch the tapes after I tripped over them.

Ferrous, however, finds clumps of grass and flowers more interesting than the history of the graves.

He love plants, and has a vast knowledge about them. He knows more than even my mother knows about plants. That's how I came up with the nickname Fern for him.

I notice that he's sorting out the plants he collected, into edible, medical or both—I do know a little about plants. I walk over to him to help him out.

"Hey Fern," I greet him, and ruffle his hair.

"Hey Lil," he responds, but he's distracted by plants.

"What's this?" I pick up a plant from the edible pile. It's a plant with small leaves and small white flowers. I like the colour white—it's so pure and peaceful.

"That's White Heather. It's a symbol of luck."

I roll it around in my fingers and inspect it, then put it back in the edible pile.

"Are you really going to eat those?" I ask, and point to the edible pile.

"Tempting. I'm pretty hungry." He jokes.

I roll my eyes and laugh. "Come on, explain more of your fascinating plants to me."

He takes me seriously and proceeds to explain every plant he has in his little pile he collected until our parents said it was time to leave.

We go home and I decide to skip watching the tapes tonight and tune in early. I have an eventful day tomorrow—I have to bring Ferrous to the woods and attend a feast afterwards. Just another day in the life of Lily Mellark.


	3. Chapter 3

"Quiet, Ferrous. You're scaring all the birds away."

"I wish you'd stop killing animals. We have enough to eat anyways."

I sigh. This is why I don't always bring Ferrous to the woods with me. He keeps nagging me about how killing animals is wrong. The meat we buy from the butcher comes from the same way anyways.

"Fine, I'll set up some snares, since you insist on being so noisy with your plant-picking."

I whistle Rue's four-note-song unintentionally while building a snare, and don't notice until the mockingjays repeat and spread it around the woods. I laugh and sing some more short melodies. The mockingjays reiterate.

"_Now _who's being noisy?"

"Try it, Fern. It's fun."

Ferrous stops his berry-picking and whistles a few notes. The mockingjays sing back to him and he laughs and whistles another.

We laugh and talk while we have a little feast with the berries Ferrous collected and the rabbit I caught. It's nice to do something so relaxing.

"We should get going," Ferrous says, and he gets up and brushes the dust off his pants. 'Mom says we need to get home early to prepare for the Peace Feast.'

"It's just going to be some boring meal."

Ferrous sits back down. "But it's the thirtieth year and Mayor Camelon is hosting it."

For celebrating a new era of peace, they hold peace feasts every ten years. Usually a Mayor volunteers to host the feast. All mayors and their families from other districts are invited, along with the last living tributes and rebels, though most tributes and rebels don't come due to old age. Personally I think Peace Feasts are stupid. They just remind everyone that there wasn't peace before.

"But there will be good food," Ferrous prompts.

"That is very true," I say and get up. "Alright, let's go."

* * *

"What should I wear?" I ask my mother after my shower.

She ushers me to her room and I can see she laid out an outfit for me. A white blouse and a plain lavender skirt. I dress up in it, and find that the blouse is a bit too big on me, which must mean it belongs to my mother.

"Better tuck in that tail, little duck," she says, and reaches to tuck in the back of my blouse.

She's smiling, but her eyes are filled with sadness. She says the line as if It's an inside joke and she's said it a lot of times. I feel like she's waiting for a response, so I thank her. This is obviously not the answer she expected, because her smile falters, realizing I am not the one she used to say the line to.

Ferrous and my father are wearing something similar to what they wore to the graveyard, except it's a lot less solemn.

"Don't you look handsome?" I say to Ferrous, and pinch his nose.

"Here," he presents a clip in the palm of his hand. It has white flowers—white heather flowers on it.

"I took one of your clips and stuck some leaves and white heather flowers on it, since you liked it so much the other day. I hope you don't mind."

I smile. "Of course not. It's very pretty. Now help me pin it to my hair."

He smiles back and clips his gift on the side of my head, above my ear. It matches my outfit.

We arrive at the Mayor's house on time for the feast. Everyone is dressed up and looks well-mannered. The banquet table is extremely long, with the host up front and District 13 at the very back.

Everyone is served a glass of pink fruit punch and everyone stands up for a toast. I shudder when I swallow the liquid. It's sickeningly sweet, like syrup mixed with fruit.

Mayor Camelon then gives a boring speech about peace and happiness, and the rest I don't quite catch. I see some of the guests falling asleep almost immediately. It's only been thirty seconds, but it feels like half an hour. Mayor Camelon clearly needs to work on his intonation.

More people fall asleep. That's weird. This should be a group of respectable people. I stifle a yawn myself as I look over to my mother, who is frowning and looking at her glass, as if it's something familiar and she's trying to remember what it is.

I don't stay long enough for my mother to figure it out. My head slams onto the dining table and I fall asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

When I wake up, I am lying on a flat metal surface in a small enclosed room, and chained up with belts. There is a giant computer opposite me, filled with diagrams and words I don't understand.

I try to feel if my white heather clip is still there, but I can't move at all. I struggle to free myself, but with no luck.

Then I realize I am not in my blouse and skirt anymore. Whoever locked me in here stripped and dressed me while I was asleep. I find that indeed disturbing.

I am now wearing a dark green T-shirt and a black jack, with nylon pants to match. Where my lavender flats should be, is now a pair of mud-brown boots.

I try to move my arms and free myself again, but I can't. Maybe if I squirm long enough I can loosen the straps and get out of here.

A man in a black jumpsuit enters the room. "You're awake."

I ignore him and ask if the white heather clip is still in my hair.

"Yes, Miss Mellark. It is. Now please keep quiet."

"Where's Ferrous? Where are my parents?" I grunt as I struggle to free myself.

"Please keep quiet," he tells me, and types something onto the computer.

"Where am I? Why am I here? Where's Ferrous? You'd better answer my questions." I don't know why I said that. I am in no position to threaten people.

He ignores me and leaves the room, only to return quickly with a large silver syringe in his hand.

I scream as he approaches me and injects something in my arm, but to my surprise, nothing happens.

"What did you do?" I ask.

He mumbles something like 'tracker' and releases me from the belts. Just as I decide to make a run for it, he shoves my arms into a straitjacket and blindfolds me.

I scream, but he stuffs a rag in my mouth and leads me to nowhere. I have no idea where we're going. There's no noise except for the sound of our feet.

After walking for a short while, he removes the rag, blindfold, and the straitjacket and shoves me into a tube.

"What's going on?" I scream, but I'm quickly lifted up by the tube onto a round metal plate. It takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light.

"60."

I can see the familiar golden cornucopia in front of me, and there are 25 other people, all looking as confused as I am. I can see Ferrous on the plate next to me, but my parents are nowhere to be seen. In fact, no adults are here at all. Ferrous learned about the Games at a young age—like everyone else did, so he must have some idea we're in an arena.

"50."

All of the other people are looking around, trying to figure out what's happening, but all of us have the good sense to stay on our plates before the timer reaches zero, because we all know one thing—we're the tributes of the Hunger Games.

"40."

I recognize most of the other tributes from the feast. They're all either a mayor's child, or a victor's or rebel's child. There are backpacks and weapons spread out across the mouth of the cornucopia, but I don't know if there's going to be a bloodbath and it's better not to risk it. Besides, I need to get Ferrous to safety.

"20."

The arena has extremely tall trees that resemble rainforests, but the grass and the forest floor looks like it's from the woods. I can hear birds singing.

"10."

I remember the last conversation I had with my mother in the woods and a hysterical giggle escapes my mouth. How ironic.

"0."

When the timer reaches zero, some of the tributes stay glued to their plates, but some of them run for their lives. I am the latter. I run and grab Ferrous by the arm and run away from the cornucopia.

"But Lily, if we run we won't get anything!"

"You won't _be _anything if you go."

"But we're defenseless!"

"Even if we _had _weapons you wouldn't know how to use them!"

"Lily, what's going on?"

"I don't know, Ferrous."

We keep running towards nowhere and Ferrous reluctantly follows. The trees in the arena are too tall and have few branches, so I can't climb and hide on them. It's hard to decide where to stop.

"Lily!" Ferrous calls out behind me, panting heavily. "Can we…stop now?"

We stop next to a giant tree trunk. We're still in plain view, so we have to move as soon as we catch our breaths. I lean against the tree, and Ferrous crashes onto the ground. I can see his chest rising up and down rapidly.

When we both cool down, we start walking to find a source of water.

I keep thinking who would want to force us into the games. Since Mayor Camelon was the one who drugged us, he must have had something to do with it. The only scenario I can come up with is that Mayor Camelon is somehow related to President Snow, and wants revenge. I tell this idea to Ferrous.

"But if he wanted revenge, wouldn't he have just captured all the victor's and rebel's children? Why the politicians' children too?" Ferrous speculates.

I consider this for a moment and decide that he's right.

"Maybe he just hates politicians," I suggest.

"_Maybe_, instead of thinking of why we're here, you start thinking a way of how to get out of here." Ferrous pokes around for traces of mud.

"At least I've been _thinking_. What have you been doing for the last thirty seconds?"

"I'm thinking of how to get water, and how we're going to survive without anything, since you chickened out at the cornucopia."

"If there aren't any casualties, we'll go back tomorrow," I assure.

We eventually find a lake and Ferrous and I gather roots and berries together. Mainly he spots he plants, and I help gather them. I'm not as good as Ferrous at plants, and I trust his judgement on them.

We have a small feast like we did in the woods before the feast, but I keep jumping at every small noise, like danger is lurking in every corner.

"Ferrous, put your hood up," I tell him, and put mine up as well.

"Why?" he asks, but does as he's told.

"It might act as some sort of protection if someone shoots you from behind."

He shakes his head. "You are so paranoid."

"I'm concerned for your safety. And we should leave the rest of the food for tomorrow."

He nods stuffs the rest of the roots and berries into his pocket.

We talk for a while and try to figure out how to escape, but with no luck.

"Maybe we can dig our way out," Ferrous proposes.

"That's ridiculous."

Ferrous yawns. "Better than _your _idea."

"Shut up," I say, but I smile. "You should go to sleep, Fern. I'll take first watch."

He doesn't need to be told twice. He lays his head on my shoulder and soon begins snoring. His head is extremely heavy, but I don't budge. Probably heavy from storing all that information about plants.

I hear a cannon and I jump. Ferrous' eyelids flutter at the noise, but I tell him to go back to sleep.

Not long after, the faces of the dead are shown. There's only one, though. It's the seven-year-old daughter of the mayor from district 10. I don't remember her name, but I'm pretty sure it starts with a 'N', like her older brother, Navin. I know Navin from the second Peace Feast ten years ago. I was four and Ferrous was one then. Annie Cresta's son played with us and led all the games, since he was the oldest. Almost all of us children played together during the feast. Navin was the only child who didn't play with us.

I'm very tired, but I don't want to wake Ferrous, so I bite my tongue to stay awake. I sit there, guarding him from danger, hoping he would get up soon.

* * *

**Please leave a review to tell me what you think of the story so far and what you think I should do to improve it.**

**I hope you like the first four chapters. The next one will include more action.:)**

**Your opinions are much appreciated.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Enjoy and pleaseeee review. Thanks:)**

* * *

Luckily Ferrous wakes up before dawn, so I can get some shut-eye. When Ferrous wakes me up, it's around ten in the morning.

"Anything interesting happened while I was asleep?" I ask.

"Not much. How about while I was asleep?"

"The little girl from district 10 died," I tell Ferrous.

"That's a shame. We need to get back to the cornucopia," he tells me.

We eat some roots for breakfast and head back towards the cornucopia. I hope not all of the goodies are taken yet.

We walk for a short while before I hear someone shout behind me.

"You!"

Ferrous and I turn around, and I see Navin, with blood and cuts on his whole body. He looks pretty injured.

"You!" he repeats. "You killed Nada."

Nada. That was the name I was trying to remember last night. Navin's younger sister. The first cannon.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"You were responsible for the giant mutt birds that went after us! I bet you planned that all along, with your mayor. You killed Nada. But then again, what would I expect from the children of a _killer_." He sneers.

"Lily, let's go." Ferrous tugs at my arm, but I shake it away. How dare he accuse me and Ferrous of killing an innocent child? How dare he say our parents our killers? They did what they had to do to survive.

"We didn't kill Nada," I say firmly.

"Liar!" he screams and pounces on me. He took me by surprise, so I couldn't dodge. He pins me on the ground.

Ferrous screams and tries to get him off me, but Navin grabs him by the collar and throws him on the ground.

"Ferrous!" I scream, and struggle to free myself, but I can't. Navin's too strong.

Ferrous groans but he doesn't get up. He must have hit his head on the ground.

I try to squirm away from Navin, but this only makes his grip on me tighter. He takes a knife out of his belt.

"I watched my sister die. I couldn't protect her. The birds…they came out of nowhere and swarmed all around us." Navin's eyes glistens with tears. He draws a line along the side of my face with his knife as he speaks. Then his expression hardens. "My sister's death was long and painful. And so will yours be."

Tears roll down my cheeks. I am genuinely frightened now, not just by the fact that he's going to kill me, but also but the insane look in his eyes. Watching Nada die must have made him go wild.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you myself. I'm not like your family of _killers_," he tells me, knife still on my face. "I'm just going to let nature handle you."

He points to something that looks like a wasp's nest above us. It's dangling from the tip of a tree branch above us. It looks like it's going to fall any minute.

"How lucky it is I found the tracker jacker nest near your hideout. A throw of my knife, and the nest will come plummeting down," he grins. "You and your brother will get the deaths you deserve—death by tracker jackers. Like how you _mother_ killed the other tributes in her games."

I grunt, still trying to escape. I can't let him throw the knife.

"But then you'll die too. Please, Navin. You don't have to do this," I plead.

"I know that."

He raises his arm to get a good angle at the nest, and uses his foot to pin my hand down. I brace myself for the stingers.

Just as he's going to release the knife, an arrow shoots his hand. He yells and loosens his grip on me. I push him away and kick him backwards, and he slams into the tree trunk which has the nest on it. The nest drops.

The person who shot Navin lifts Ferrous, who is still unconscious. There's a bit of blood on his hair. We run for our lives. I hear Navin's crazy laugh turn into screams as the tracker jackers closes up on him. I want to run back and help him, but I know it's too late.

A few of the tracker jackers go our way, though. We run to lose them, but they keep following us. I cringe as I feel a sting on the back of my neck, and another on my hand. I pull the stingers out.

I shake my head to clear it, but I'm starting to see things. Shiny things. Horrible things. Black tar is dripping from the sky, and there are flying rats which turn into spiders and attack me. Dead corpses floating on a lake of blood. I scream as each of my family member take turns to shoot me.

* * *

The scene changes, and now I'm in a cave. I see Ferrous' face.

He's going to kill me again. He's going to throw me in the lake of blood and leave me to drown as the corpses claw at my face. Either that or he's going to die in front of me, somewhere I can see him be murdered but can't reach.

"Hey, sleeping ugly. You're finally awake," he greets me.

I back away from him and scream.

"Lily, calm down. I didn't mean it. You've been screaming for the past two days," he tells me. 'I'm not a hallucination.' He reaches behind my ear and tugs at something. I scream again.

That something is the white heather clip that Ferrous gave me.

"Look. It's white heather. Remember? It represents good luck. You're safe now. You're awake." He presses the clip back into my palm, and soothes me as if I were the younger sibling.

My real memories are starting to come back now. Ferrous is my brother and he would never hurt me. I am in the arena. Navin tried to kill me. I was stung by tracker jackers.

The hallucinations from the tracker jacker's poison seems unreal now, though they were so vivid before. A lot of the hallucinations had my family in it, and they were trying to hurt me. But now I know that's not true.

I look over at my hand where I got stung. It has leaves on it, but it still hurts a little when I press down on it. The sting on the back of my neck is the same.

"I couldn't find the leaves for tracker jacker stings, so I just used some leaves that fight inflammation. Your stings look a lot better though," Ferrous informs me.

"What happened after Navin attacked us?'I ask.

"Well, I was half awake the time Darin hauled me up. I heard Navin scream but strangely I didn't hear the cannon. I didn't see his face in the sky either. Then you collapsed and I got up, and Darin and I found this cave and we lifted you here. You were asleep for two whole days, though you kept screaming. I missed you." Ferrous hugs me and buries his face in my shoulder. I stroke his soft blond hair. The blood in his hair is gone.

"Who's Darin?" I asked.

"Oh, right. You haven't met him yet. He's the one who shoot an arrow to Navin's hand and saved us. He's cooking outside. We've got all the stuff we need now, thanks to Darin."

Just as Ferrous finishes his sentence, Darin walks in, holding two roasted things which I think are birds.

Darin Hawthorne. Of course. The only boy I bonded with at the second Peace Feast. His father is Gale Hawthorne, but I've never seen him before.

Darin has grey eyes and dark hair-features from the seam, as my mother would have put it. He's grown handsomer over the years.

"Hey, Lily. Didn't realize you were awake, or else I would have roasted a bucketful of these things," Darin says, giving one of the birds to me. "You know Ferrous, your sister ate like a whale at the second Peace Feast. What she consumed would have fed an entire village for a year." Ferrous laughs at Darin's exaggerated story.

"That is not true," I say between hungry bites of my bird, so my voice is a little muffled.

"See? Told you so." Darin and Ferrous laughs. Looks like they really bonded while I was hallucinating.

"I haven't eaten in two whole days," I say in my defense.

"Whatever you say, Lily."

I glare at Darin and he smiles, amused. Then he tosses a backpack to me after I finish eating.

"Here. Sorted out some stuff for you. Also got you this." Darin reaches back and tosses something else to me. Bow and arrows!

"Thank you so much." Carrying a bow makes me feel strong and confident again. I feel like I'm ready for anything.

"I want to hunt," I announce.

"Still hungry?" Darin and Ferrous snickers.

I blush. "No. I just wanted to try out my new bow."

"Sure. We're running low on food anyways. Ferrous can go gather roots as we hunt," Darin says.

"I am not leaving Ferrous out of my sight."

"I can gather near you guys. I won't go far," Ferrous promises.

"Fine, but you have to put your hood up."

He smiles and rolls his eyes, but does as I say.

"Why do you have to put your hood up?" Darin asks, frowning.

"Because if someone shoots you from behind, it might act as some sort of protection," Ferrous explains, mimicking me.

Darin still doesn't understand, but he doesn't have to. It's Ferrous and I's own inside joke.


	6. Chapter 6

**Be sure to read the second half of Chapter 5 first.**

**This chapter should help clarify things a little.**

* * *

_**Katniss' POV**_

"Let Lily and Ferrous go!" I try to walk forward, but I can't. MY arms and legs are chained to the walls. Even if they weren't, I wouldn't be able to pass through the force field separating every one of us.

"Poor Navin. Poor Nada. Poor Nada, so high up in the sky…" I hear some woman sob.

"I assure you, madam. Navin is alright. I sent one of my helpers to inject the antidote to him," Camelon says. He's the mayor of our district. He's in his mid-forties, around the same age as I am.

After we were drugged at the Peace Feast a few days ago, we were chained up in this gigantic room. All of us form a U-shape, and is forced to watch our children participate in the Games walls of TV screens surrounding us. Everywhere you look, you can still see the arena. You can't escape watching their terror.

"Free Elysia at once!" Bogg's son yells. "Why are you doing this to us?"

Camelon sighs. "I have already explained myself once, but since you were clearly not listening, I shall state my business again. If you agree to support me as the new president to overthrow Paylor _and _agree to all my terms, I will free your children. One, you shall not speak of this to anyone. Two, you will allow me to re-enact the Games. Three, you will be responsible to stop any signs or voices of rebellions and protests in your respective districts, as you are all influential people. Simple as that."

Shouts of protests come from everyone, saying this is madness and demanding their children to be freed. Only Peeta is level-headed enough to stay quiet.

Camelon tsks. "Do you still not understand, even with what happened with Nada and Navin, that I am the one holding all the power? Push a button, and hungry mutts will run after your children. Type in a code, and a tsunami will drown your child."

Everyone falls silent. Nada and Navin's father—I think he's the mayor of District 10—protested the most, so Camelon killed off Nada to manipulate him. Just like when President Snow captured Peeta to manipulate me.

"Mr Mellark," Camelon turns to Peeta and leans his face so it is close to Peeta's, but not close enough to touch the force field. "You've been very quiet. What do you think of me as president?"

This is a trick question. If he supports his idea, then he's just caving in. The Hunger Games won't be history anymore. If he says no, then he'll do something horrible to our children.

"I can't tell you right now" is Peeta's final answer. Then Camelon turns his face towards mine.

"What do you think, mockingjay? Do you support me as the new president of Panem?"

I turn my face away and refuse to answer him.

"Mrs. Mellark, you live in District 12. You know how well District 12 became after I became the mayor. I can share this good fortune to the whole of Panem. You and your children will be safe," Camelon persuades.

"Safe? They have a chance to be reaped at the Games!" I shout with fury.

"Don't worry. I will personally promise you that none of your children have a chance of participating in the Games," Camelon says.

It sounds pretty tempting to say yes to Camelon now. But I can't. I can't watch more people die in the Games again. I can't watch them and know that I agreed to it.

"Sooner or later, someone else is going to find out about this!" someone shouts.

"No they won't,' Camelon guarantees,"I have already told everyone that we are all in an emergency meeting and it may last for days."

"What about our children? What about the death of Nada?" Someone else asks.

"You will have to think about those yourselves. If you had cooperated, those problems wouldn't even have existed," Camelon says matter-of-factly.

I ignore some other questions and shouts of protests as I watch Lily and Ferrous make friends with Gale Hawthorne's younger son. I've met his younger son and wife at the second Peace Feast. His wife is pretty, but isn't very chatty. She reminds me a bit of Madge. His younger son looks just like Gale. I haven't seen Gale in a long time, and he's never been to any events he's been invited to, so I haven't seen him in a long time. I also heard he has an older son, but I've never met him either.

It's strange to think of Gale after so long. I've kept him locked out of my mind for so long. I close my eyes and force myself to stop thinking of all the happy memories we once had, and focus on saving Lily and Ferrous.

"I will not allow you to continue this madness!" the mayor of district 7 shouts.

"Since so many of you have second thoughts, I will give you a demonstration of what I can do." Camelon turns around and types something on his computer. I can't see what he's typing since his body is blocking the screen, but I can make out two words: acid rain.

I look over to Peeta, and to my surprise he's been looking at me all along. I shoot him a worrying look and he smiles reassuringly. I can almost feel his arm around me, telling me that it's alright.

"I love you," he mouths.

"I love you too," I mouth back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Thank you everyone who took the time to review my story:)**

**I already corrected all the typos HermioneJMalfoy listed out.**

**Anyways, enjoy and review!**

* * *

_**Lily's**** POV**_

We decide to go back to the lake to hunt, because we need to fill our water bottles and cleanse ourselves anyways. As Ferrous, Darin and I walk, I keep my hands on my bow and arrows, ready to shoot. And I'm not talking about animals.

I know it's stupid of me to be suspicious of Darin, who saved my life, but this is the arena, after all. Darin doesn't seem to notice. Ferrous is telling him about poisonous plants, and he's pretending to be interested. When we reach the lake, Darin and I scout for meat as Fern the plant lover gathers veggies.

There aren't a lot of birds flying around. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any animals scurrying around today. We wait for a while; poised to shoot, but there's nothing to shoot at.

My mind drifts off to thoughts about other people in the arena. I think all of us are under twenty, with the exception of Finn Odair. I guess he's around thirty or so, but he still looks a lot like a teenager, and he still looks really handsome.

"Lily. Lily? Hello? You there?"

"What?" I say dreamily, though a little louder than intended.

"My arms are getting tired. The birds are too high up in the trees. Why don't we set up some snares?" Darin suggests.

"Oh. Right. Okay." I blush and lower my bow.

"So what were you thinking about?" Darin asks as he makes a snare. He's surprisingly good at it.

"The other people in the arena," I say, cheeks coloring a little.

Darin frowns. "Lily, your face is red. Are you alright?"

"Yeah. It's just allergies. To, uhm, grass."

Darin looks at me funnily.

"Carry on," I say.

Luckily Darin buys my story. Or at least plays along so I don't look too stupid. He shrugs and says, "Haven't seen the others in a while. I can't even recognize half of them."

"You recognized me," I say helpfully.

"Yeah," he clears his throat, "Well, lucky for you." I watch as he tests his trap. It works perfectly.

"I guess I still haven't officially thanked you. So…thanks for saving my life." It's so weird thanking somebody you just now thought of killing. Of course, I don't want to kill anyone, but if someone hurts Ferrous, they're going to pay.

"Anytime," Darin says, and helps me out with my snare.

"Lily!" Ferrous calls from behind. He holds up half a plastic bag of greens. "Is this enough?'

"Guess so. Hope our snares work so we have a little meat to go with it," I reply.

The three of us go to the lake and wash our faces and drink from it. None of us feel comfortable stripping and taking a bath, though we're all sticky and covered with dirt. Besides, I'd rather kill myself first than die of embarrassment having to take a bath in front of Darin.

Just then, a screaming voice comes toward us. We don't even have time to react. Something jumps into the lake and splashes us wet. Turns out we did get to take a bath.

"We need to run," Darin says, hastily packing his bags.

"What? No!" Ferrous shouts, outraged. "Someone was attacked. We need to help them."

Ferrous walks toward the something that jumped in. We have no choice but to follow.

"Are you alright?" Ferrous asks. That something is a girl with brown hair and soiled make-up.

"What do you think? I just got rained on by acid!" Acid. No wonder the water was bubbling slightly.

But there's something else. I recognize that voice. I look over to Darin, and I know he recognizes it too.

"Eden?" I call out. Eden is the daughter of district 7's mayor. She has a reputation of being really wild. I didn't talk to her much, though. My mother told me to steer clear of her.

Eden frowns. "I haven't heard anyone call me that in a long time. I changed my name to Joannie."

'Why?' Darin immediately asks, but his question is immediately answered by "None of your business".

We help Eden/Joannie out of the water. Her jacket has holes that look like it's been burned, and her hair is singed.

After Joannie recovers, she tells us about how acid suddenly started pouring down on her. I feel sorry for her, because her clothes are all wet, and tonight feels especially cold, as if the gamemakers decided that being poured on by acid isn't enough. We don't dare start a fire because it might attract attention. Joannie stays close to me to get warmer, because I'm the only other girl, but that doesn't mean it makes me any more comfortable.

"So do you know why we're here?"Joannie asks as she rubs her arms. We shake our heads.

"Actually, I've been thinking of an escape plan," Darin says. Everyone focuses on him. "Lily and I can act as star-crossed lovers—just like Lily's parents, and people will feel sorry for us. They let us live. Simple as that."

I nearly choke on nothing. After half a minute of choking and coughing, I sputter out two words: "No way." I clear my throat. "Besides, what about Ferrous and Joannie?"

"I've got it." Darin holds up his hands dramatically. "_Joannie _and I will play the star-crossed lovers. Lily and Ferrous can do that adorable brother and sister thing."

This time, both Joannie and I nearly choke on nothing. I don't know why I choked, but this idea just makes me feel more uncomfortable.

"It won't work," Ferrous comes to our aid. "We don't even know if this show is televised. In the 74th Hunger Games, they allowed both my parents to win because the gamemakers needed to please the audience. We don't know for sure there's an audience."

"Even if it were, I'd rather take my chances with the acid than pretend to be in love with you," Joannie says, after we finish choking and clapping each other on the back.

"Admit it, Darin. You're just _desperate_," I tease.

"Not desperate enough to date you two. It was just a _suggestion_."

"A horrible one," Joannie says and smiles at me. I decide that Joannie isn't that bad. I thought she would jump at the chance to kiss a guy, but turns out she's pretty cool.

"We need a real plan," I say. "We need to destroy the force field surrounding us."

"How are you so sure there's a force field?" Darin asks sulkily, as if still thinking his idea is better.

"We can check." I tell the others to help me in finding a tree with lower branches so I can climb on top of it and shoot an arrow to the sky. It was hard and scary climbing the tree, considering the branches are so tall and so weak, but I reach the top and release my arrow. Of course, I'm right. There is a force field surrounding us. Slowly, I climb back down.

"It's confirmed—there's a force field," I announce.

"So how are you going to destroy it?" Darin asks.

"I-I don't know. But I'll figure something out. My mother used lightning—"

"There isn't any lightning. And if there were, where would you aim it at?"

"There's a weak spot in every force field—"

"And where's that?"

"Gosh, Darin. Stop asking me so many questions!" I throw my hands up in frustration. "You're just jealous because _you _can't think of a better idea! Forget it. I'll figure it out myself."

I take my backpack and head back towards the cave and lay out my sleeping bag and lean my head against the wall. It's getting late anyways.

The others come in too, but I take no notice of them. I said I would figure it out myself. And I will. Ferrous comes by and gives me an encouraging hug, but that doesn't lighten up my mood.

Darin offers to take first watch, and I remain in my sitting position, unwilling to speak.

"I'm sorry." Darin scoots over and sits next to me. I ignore him and look away.

"I didn't mean any of it. Honest. I was just trying to be helpful."

He sounds sincere, but I'm still really mad at him. But I'm also angry at myself for not being able to think of a plan. I'm angry that I'm not as smart as I thought I was. Or maybe it's just teenage mood swings.

"Please don't be mad at me."

"Why do you care if I'm mad at you or not?" I say in a harsh voice.

This question takes him by surprise. "Because you're my friend, Lily."

I don't say anything.

"Is the idea of dating me _that _bad?" he asks.

"No—I mean, I guess not. Joannie and I were just kidding around."

"You nearly _choked_."

I hope he doesn't see me blushing. My anger turns to confusion. "It's not the type of news you respond to enthusiastically. I've only known you for a day, Darin."

"I know. I was just kidding. You should get some sleep," he tells me. I guess he wants to end the conversation quickly. I don't blame him.

_This conversation has officially weirded out our friendship_, I think, but I don't say anything.

I crawl into my sleeping bag and pretend to sleep, but I keep thinking about ways to destroy the force field and Darin and our last conversation.

I don't know when, but eventually my eyelids grow tired and I fall asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks for all of your suggestions and reviews:)**

**I had fun writing this chapter, so I hope you like it:)**

* * *

I am awakened by the soft pitter patter of rain.

I get up, and for the first time, take a good look around the cave. The cave is quite roomy, so we're not all bunched up together when we sleep and large enough for us to sit round in a circle. The ground below me is sharp and rough, and extremely uncomfortable to lie on, even with a sleeping bag, but I'm usually so tired I don't mind.

The cave is damper and drearier than usual, if that's possible. Probably because it's raining outside.

I step over Ferrous, careful not to step on him, and make my way to the mouth of the cave. Instead of Darin, I find Joannie sitting there, hugging her legs. They must have switched shifts while I was asleep. Not that I care.

"Hey," I say to Joannie, and sit down next to her.

"Raining blood," she murmurs, her eyes fixed on a distance.

I look at her, thinking _she's gone off the deep end_, until I look outside and realize that she's right. There's a heavy red downpour outside. There's a rusty smell to it.

Joannie sighs. "I wonder what they're planning on this time."

"Whatever it is, it can't be good."

It's a while before she asks, "Did you know the little girl who died?"

"Nada? No, not really. Though her brother Navin tried to kill me." I explain what happened when Ferrous and I were attacked by Navin and how Darin saved us. I shudder when I tell her how I was stung by tracker jackers and how Navin miraculously survived. I shudder again when I remember the hallucinations brought by the tracker jacker venom.

"He's crazy," Joannie shakes her head. "Well, if he ever has the nerve to show up again, we'll have him outnumbered." She smiles at me and I can't help but smile back.

We watch the blood rain for a while together until it stops. We wake Darin and Ferrous to get back to the lake.

Red. Everything in red. That's what I see when I first step out of the cave. Instead of the faint scent of trees and grass, everything smells like blood. Not to mention there's blood everywhere. Trees, bushes, plants, everything is covered in bright, red blood. The bottom of my mud-brown boots are now coated with blood. Blood. As far as the eye can see.

That's not even the worst part. We head to the lake, hoping to see clear water to drown out the horrible sight of blood, but all we get is more blood. (No surprise there!)

The lake—the entire lake, is now filled with the revolting red substance, flowing gently downstream.

_Dead corpses floating gently down the lake_

I blink my eyes. The corpses were only my imagination. But the lake of blood is real.

I turn the the others. They all look up at me.

"It's okay." I take a shaky breath. "Plants…plants have water in them. We can live off that. Ferrous can pick berries. They've got juice in them. People drink berry juice all the time, anyways."

We walk over to a berry bush and we all pick some from it. They're all doused in blood, but we already finished the bag of plants yesterday, so we don't really have a choice. I try scrubbing the berry with my shirt, but only part of the blood comes off. I roll it around in my fingers with uncertainty.

Darin pops a berry in his mouth but immediately spits it back out. "Ah! There's blood inside!"

I take several deep breaths. Okay. No plants, no meat, no water. This can't be happening. It's a dream. A hallucination. This can't be happening.

"So…what do we do?" Joannie asks. Three heads turn towards me for answers.

"I…I don't know," I say. I hate not knowing. "But I'm sure if we keep walking, we'll find water." They don't look very convinced. "We'll find water," I say with assurance, and lead them away from the lake, deeper inside the woods. I can't stand looking at it anymore. I keep telling them we'll be fine, but the longer we walk, the less positive I am.

"It'll be fine," I mutter.

Behind me, Ferrous pants. "Walking…Nearly two hours…" he wheezes. I swear, if we get out of this alive, I am forcing him on a treadmill every day.

"I'm so thirsty," Darin groans. I think this is the first time I heard him say anything since last night. Anyway, we've got bigger problems to worry about.

I feel really thirsty myself. My throat hurts when I swallow, but I can't risk drinking what's left from my water bottle. Who knows how long it'll be until we find water again. The fact that we're all sweating so much doesn't help either. It feels like a hundred degrees with the sun beating down on my face. It's like walking through a desert. We've got two days tops without water.

"Hello? You…completely…ignored me," Ferrous wheezes again. Oh, right. Accidentally forgot about Ferrous.

"We can't just stop here," I tell him.

"Watch me." Ferrous says and bends down, catching his breath. Geez, it's not like we were running or anything.

"Come on, Ferrous. I know you can do it." Joannie gives him an encouraging smile.

"Right. I can do this," Ferrous says, puffing up his chest. Probably doesn't want to look bad in front of a cute girl.

"We need something to distract our thirst. Or in Fern's case, his poor aching joints," I say.

"Hey!"

"That's not a bad idea. How about we play a game or something?" Joannie proposes.

"What about 'I spy'?" Darin says.

"Oh. I thought you were going to suggest something more mature and manly, like 'tag', or 'rock, paper, scissors" Joannie smiles. I try hard not to laugh.

"It was _your _idea to play a game!"

"Yeah, whatever. Stop being such a baby, Darin."

"This is hopeless. Why don't I climb a tree to see if I can spot any water from that height?" I ask.

"You should have thought of that two hours ago!" Ferrous shouts.

"You're right, I should have," I admit. "But since I didn't, help me find a nice tree with low branches."

When we find a tree with relatively low branches, Darin crouches down and I step on his back to hoist myself up.

Darin groans. "You're heavy. I hope you didn't leave a shoe-print or anything."

I glance down at the back of Darin's shirt. "Congratulations. You now have a patch of blood the shape of a shoe on the back of your shirt."

But Darin's shirt is nothing compared to what I'm up against. Since all the trees are covered in blood, it's extra hard to climb and now my entire body is coated with blood. Halfway to the top, I slip and fall. Fortunately for me, there's something to cushion my fall. Unfortunately for Darin, that something is him. He groans and rubs his back.

"I am so, so sorry," I say and help him up.

"I save your life and you just decide to land on top of me. Great."

I blush. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"Yeah, I know," Darin says. "It's okay." He raises his hand to indicate that it's fine.

"Are you two alright?" Joannie asks, checking me for bruises.

"Yeah, she's the one who's hurt. Don't mind me. I'm just the one who clearly needs medical attention!" Darin says sarcastically.

Joannie looks over to Darin and frowns. "I'm not touching you."

"I'm fine, Joannie, seriously. Darin's the one we should help," I say.

"Dang right I am," Darin mutters.

"Fine. Did you break anything?" Joannie asks.

"I think my tailbone's bruised. And my elbow."

"I'm not gonna check your butt, but I can look over your elbow," I say.

Darin eyes me suspiciously. "You're a healer?"

"No, but I know a little first aid from my grandmother. Fern, can you get some plants that heals bruises, maybe?"

Ferrous shakes his head. "I bet they're all drenched in blood. And besides, I doubt there's any parsley here."

"Riiiight," I say, stretching out the word. I check Darin's elbow. Minor bruises there. I gently massage the area surrounding the bruise.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Darin asks.

"Nope," I say confidently.

"Well, that's reassuring."

"Hey Fern," I call out, "massage Darin's tailbone. You know how to do it."

He gives me a look that says _You make me walk for two hours and now you want me to massage Darin's butt? _

"Do I have to?" Ferrous asks in his whining tone.

"Yes."

"But it's so…inappropriate."

"Just do it."

Ferrous groans. I bet he wishes he had gone to find parsley. Darin flips around, stomach facing the ground. Ferrous eyes his butt with a look of disgust saying _ I can't believe I'm massaging another dude's butt._

Eventually Ferrous does what I say and starts massaging around Darin's tailbone, with an even more disgusted look that says _ew, ew, ew, ew, ew._

Darin certainly looks relaxed, with people pampering him. "Hey Joannie! Come give me a shoulder massage!"

Joannie smiles slyly, like she's plotting something. If I were Darin, I would not like that smile. But since I am Lily, and that smile always leads to something funny, I love that smile.

Joannie crouches down and winks at me. Then she squeezes Darin's shoulder with all her force. Darin howls. Joannie and I sit up laughing like crazy, forgetting that we're surrounded by blood, and that fact that Darin's howl might attract people to attack us.

After Darin's furious comments and Ferrous' disgusted look like he just experienced some kind of trauma, we move on to continue our search.

After we recover from the experience, we realize not only we're exhausted, but also very, very thirsty. I can't even talk without my throat hurting. We finish the last of our water as we walk for what seems like hours. I close my eyes and focus on something. Anything but my hunger and thirst.

'I can't take this anymore,' Joannie croaks, and swallows with difficulty. "I'd rather drink blood than die of thirst."

This morning, thought the exact opposite. But right now, with my extremely dry and painful throat, not dying by drinking blood sounds like a fabulous idea.

We ditched the lake long ago, so we turn to the berries. I hold my breath as the berry bursts in my mouth, spilling out the metallic juice inside. It's sickeningly warm and has lumps in it. I shudder.

On the bright side, it quenched my thirst. Despite the disgusting taste of the berries, we stripped a few bushes of them until we were full.

"This is disgusting," Darin says, popping another berry in his mouth.

"Absolutely," Joannie agrees.

But there's something nagging at the back of my mind. Something about an iron overdose if you drink too much blood.

My eyes widen and I make myself sick up all the blood. Drinking blood is bad enough, but sicking it up is a whole new level of bad.

"Lily, you ok?" Ferrous asks.

"Blood…Toxic when ingested…Iron overdose." I gasp, blinking back tears in my eyes. This is the most horrible experience ever. Everyone else follows my examples and sicks up the blood too.

I'm the first to recover. "From now on, small doses. God forbid we ever have to taste blood again."

"Or maybe we can just use it to wet our throats," Joannie says.

We all nod in agreement and wipe our tongues with our hands to get the horrible taste away.

* * *

That night, since we left our cave, we huddle behind a big bush. Not as much shelter as the cave, but better than sitting in plain sight.

I see Ferrous crying in his sleep when it's my turn to take watch. I stroke his hair and touch my white heather clip. He must be having nightmares. I don't blame him.

I'd never admit it out loud, but I'm terrified too. I turn my face away and sob silently, wishing on a star that we'll get out of here soon and nothing else would happen to us.


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry for the late(ish) update. I had to take an exam:( Well, here you go.**

* * *

"Lily, get up!"

"WHAT?" I fumble for my bow and arrows.

Joannie clamps a hand over my mouth and holds a finger up to her lips. "Shh. Don't wake the others."

I rub my eyes sleepily. "Is it my turn to take watch again?"

"No, you already took second shift. I need you to help me with something."

"Joannie, it's the break of dawn. I'm sure whatever it is it can wait till morning…" I yawn and lay my head down again.

"Lily!" Joannie pulls me up. "Come on, I need you to help me."

I yawn again. "Fine. What is it?"

She puts on her trademark sly grin. "We need to give the boys a makeover."

"What makeover?"

"We have to put make-up on their faces. Their reactions in the morning will be priceless!"

"I can't believe you still want to pull pranks after we were forced to drink blood yesterday." I smack my lips. The taste of blood is still there.

Joannie shrugs. "I recover quickly. Now will you help me or what?"

"There aren't even any mirrors for them to see their own faces," I say. I look at my sleeping bag and start to climb back inside.

"Lily, focus!" Joannie grabs my shoulders and shake me awake.

"Alright, alright. I'm awake. What's the plan?" I ask.

"We use the blood and whatever juices we can find around here as make-up, and they'll wake up as a beautiful woman. And maybe they'll fall in love when they see each other." Joannie grins.

I still don't fully understand what Joannie wants, but I nod anyways. We walk around to crush some leaves and grass to act as eye shadow. It's red and green because of the blood, but Joannie manages to make it look pretty.

"Where'd you learn how to do make-up like that?" I ask.

"My _mom_ made me learn." She says the word 'mom' as if it's the worst insult she can come up with.

"She always says I don't look respectable enough, so she makes me wear make-up everywhere…" Joannie mutters. I recall she was wearing make-up at the Peace Feast, but when she jumped into the lake it got washed off.

"Why don't you get along with your mom?" I blurt out, and immediately regret it. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

She studies me carefully as if deciding whether or not to trust me. She sighs and says, "My parents…well they treat me as if I'm the most inconvenient thing that's ever happened to them. The year I was born, my dad had just become the mayor, and he's incredibly busy. My mom blames me for ruining her figure by giving birth to me. I have to behave in public because my parents are scared that I'll ruin their image. I get punished all the time for no good reason. They lock me in the closet, in the basement—"she pauses to shudder,"—and eventually I stood up to them."

"Is that why you changed your name?" I ask.

"Yeah," she smiles. "I cut my hair above my shoulders, which drove my parents crazy. I even got a tattoo." She rolls up her left sleeve and reveals a tattoo that reads Joannie'.

"A little extreme, isn't it?" I say as I coat a layer of blood on Darin's lips.

Joannie's eyes turn sad. "There's no pleasing them. I tried running away, but I got caught and severly punished for making the newspaper's headline: "District 7's mayor's only daughter runs from home."'

I nod, sensing that Joannie doesn't want to continue the conversation, but I feel glad that Joannie trusts me enough to tell me about her family.

We work in silence on the boy's faces. We kept having to reapply Darin's "lipstick" because he kept drooling.

"I think that's enough," Joannie says, and we stand back to admire our work. I have to admit, we did a pretty good job. They almost look pretty enough for me to be jealous.

"You can go back to sleep now," Joannie tells me, and I crawl back in my sleeping bag to a restful sleep.

* * *

"Gah!"

"Ah!"

I groan and open my eyes. Whoever's screaming had better have a good reason to wake me up.

I rub my eyes and get up. Oh, it's just Darin and Ferrous screaming and pointing at each other's faces.

"Why are you wearing make-up? You look like a deformed woman!" Darin yells at Ferrous.

"Me? You look like a fairy princess!" Ferrous exclaims.

"Why, don't you two ladies look stunning," Joannie says in a capitol accent.

"Not funny, Joannie!" Darin shouts.

Joannie tries hard not to laugh. "Funny for me."

I'm glad we have Joannie around. She manages to lighten up the mood, even in an arena.

Darin groans. "Do you have a mirror?"

Joannie laughs. "What, so you can check yourself out, my fairy queen Darianne?"

"It's fairy _princess_ and it's called curiosity," Darin says in his defence.

Joannie laughs again and shakes her head.

As they speak, Ferrous rubs his face furiously, but only succeeding in wiping off half the make-up. He groans.

After Joannie finishes laughing and Darin and Ferrous finish scrubbing their faces, we set course to find water again. We manage to find a pond, but it's also filled with blood. I sigh. For that half hour this morning when Darin and Ferrous found out they had make-up on, I almost forgot we had no water and no food. All of our faces are covered with blood and grime, and I smell awful. I've never wanted to take a bath so badly before.

"Ahhhhhhhh….." A voice screams. I see glimpses of Finn Odair and a black panther through the trees.

I sigh dreamily. So close, yet being chased further away.

"We have to help him," I announce, and take an arrow from my quiver.

Darin snorts. "Who, _dreamy boy?"_

"You're just jealous because he screams manlier than you do."

"He does not!"

"Girls, girls. Save life now, Argue later," Joannie says, and walks toward the direction of where Finn went.

"Wait, wait. I just thought of something hilarious," Darin says. "Where's Finn? Odair he is!"

"Odair he is!" Ferrous shouts, pointing to Finn. They're out in the open now. I draw my bow and aim for the panther.

Something growls and jumps on me just as I release my arrow, knocking it off course. I scream and try to take an arrow to stab at whatever's on me, but it has my arms pinned down.

"Hey ugly!" Joannie shouts in my direction. I hope she's referring to the thing on top of me.

"I am not ugly!" Darin shouts. He's probably somewhere on my left. But where's Ferrous?

"I'm not talking to you, you idiot!" Joannie shouts.

The thing on top of me releases me and turns to Joannie. It's a black panther, same as what was chasing Finn.

Joannie gulps. She has no weapons, yet she had the guts to face the panther. None of us are trained to fight muttations.

I draw my bow, ready to shoot at the panther, when I hear Ferrous scream behind me. I whip my head around and see a lion attacking Ferrous.

"No!" I yell, and release the arrow that was supposed to strike the panther to help Joannie. The arrow buries in the lion's head.

I turn around and see Darin stabbing the panther's back with his dagger. I shoot at the panther's head to finish it off. It howls and crumbles to the ground. I look around to see if Finn is still around, but he's gone.

I walk back to the carcasses to retrieve my arrows. No point in wasting them. I've spent a major part of my life hunting down animals anyways, and since these wanted to kill me, I have zero sympathy for them.

"That settles it. Anyone got a spare weapon?" Joannie asks, panting.

"I think I've got a knife in here somewhere…" Darin mutters, and digs around in his backpack.

"Ferrous, are you ok?" I ask him and see if he's hurt. He only has minor scratches on his arms, thankfully. I give him a hug. A feeling of guilt immediately rises in me. If anything were to happen to Joannie, it would have been my fault for shooting the lion instead of the panther.

Darin passes Joannie a knife and she sticks it in her belt. I walk over to her, preparing to apologize, when a drop of black goo falls on the ground between us.

Joannie dips her finger in it. "I think it's tar."

_Black tar dripping from the sky_

"Not again," I mutter under my breath. Another one of my hallucinations from the tracker jacker venom.

Soon it starts drizzling in black.

"It's raining tar!" Ferrous shouts, "What do we do?"

"How about run?" Darin shouts over the sound of tar plopping on the ground.

If you think running is exhausting, imagine running without eating anything for an entire day, with black tar dripping all over you and blocking your view. I slam face-first into a tree trunk.

_Great,_ I think. I hope nobody saw that.

"Cave at 10 o'clock!" Darin shouts, pointing in that direction. I frown. I don't think the cave was there a while ago. It's like it just sprouted out of the ground. But there's no time to be suspicious. We dive in it, just glad to be alive.

I stumble onto the floor. Yellow spots dances in front of my eyes. It's not very healthy to exercise without eating anything.

It's a while before I try standing up, and when I do, I feel extremely dizzy. I'm on the verge of passing out again.

_You will not pass out again. You've already gone unconscious too many times in these few days_, I tell myself, and take deep breaths. My head starts to clear.

We all try to remove the tar from ourselves and make ourselves look as presentable as possible, but that's near impossible. Luckily, I have black hair, so the tar stuck in there doesn't look too weird. Ferrous, with his blond hair, looks like a hair dye job gone wrong.

A glimpse of silver floats in our cave, landing in the middle. It's a large picnic basket with a silver parachute on top. We all gather around it.

"Wait, I thought silver parachutes mean gifts from sponsors," Darin says.

I frown. "So…I guess that means we're really in the Hunger Games?" Ferrous asks.

Darin opens the picnic basket and the sweet smell of food hits me.

"Eat now, think later," Joannie says, her mouth practically watering. I couldn't agree more.

In the picnic basket are eight sandwiches, four slices of pie and four juice boxes. Needless to say, this is meant for us.

We divide the food and eat it hungrily. At first I tried taking small bites, savoring every bite, but I quickly gave that up. I shove all the food in my face.

Within minutes, all the food is gone. We're all hungry for more, but the picnic basket's empty.

"So…Think now?" Darin asks.

"Why do you think we're in the Hunger Games? I thought it was banned," I say.

"Why did they take so long to send us stuff?" Joannie asks.

"Probably because we aren't popular enough. I _told _you we should have gone with my idea," Darin says.

I think by myself as Darin and Joannie start arguing again. Does that mean this is all really televised? And if we have sponsors, that must mean we have mentors. And the mentors in my district are…

"My parents," I whisper to myself. Have they been watching us this whole time? Why haven't they done something to help us? I'm so furious I could scream.

Ferrous stays silent too. I can tell he's sharing the same doubt as I am with our parents. I scoot closer to him and pinch his nose, like I always do.

"I don't understand, Mentor controls the flow of gifts, right?" Ferrous asks, rubbing his nose. Must have pinched it too hard.

"Yeah," I answer.

"Then what about other districts? Why didn't anyone send us water earlier?" Ferrous looks so frustrated he could cry.

"Don't think too much about it," I tell him, but a million questions are running in my mind as well.

"I want to go home."

"Don't we all."

* * *

**So who's your favorite character? I want to know what you think of the characters and how I can improve them:) Please tell me in your review!**


	10. Chapter 10

**I stayed up late typing this up. You guys had better love me for this! Don't forget to review!**

* * *

The good news—it finally rained, so now we finally have water to enjoy in our little cave.

The bad news—I got a big bruise on the middle of my forehead and the bridge of my nose. Not as embarrassing for the reason behind it though. I slammed into a tree when I was running for dear life from tar.

"Darin! You can't eat that!" Ferrous snatches away a clump of leaves Darin was munching on.

"Why not?"

"I told you guys not to eat any of the plants! Even though the blood is gone doesn't make it any less dangerous! That's _Mirage Leaves _you were happily chewing on. Now you're gonna get hallucinations!" Ferrous shouts, waving the half-chewed wad of leaves in the air furiously.

"I thought they were mint leaves. They look exactly like them. Don't worry, I only ate a little," Darin reassures.

"You're lucky these aren't poisonous," Ferrous yells at Darin. "Why doesn't anybody listen to me? I tell you not to eat foreign plants, and you go nibble on the nearest bush you can find!"

It's hard not to laugh when Ferrous gets mad. He looks so cute it's ridiculous. "Maybe because you're the youngest around here, Fern," I tell him. I put a hand over my forehead casually to cover up my bruised forehead.

"That does not excuse you people from chewing on plants that cause hallucinations!"

"Heh heh," Darin chuckles. "Lily's shirt is on fire."

"I'll handle this," Joannie says, cracking her knuckles. She slaps Darin across the face. The cave echoes the sound.

"Ow" Darin rubs his cheek, which now has five red finger marks on it.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Joannie asks, holding up three fingers.

"Three," Darin answers. "Ow!" Joannie slaps Darin across the other side of his face.

"Wrong! I have five fingers on each hand."

"But you asked—Ow!" Darin suffers yet another slap from Joannie.

"I think he's awake," Joannie says proudly. I laugh.

I don't really talk to anyone because I don't want to draw attention to my face, so I just look around and try to think of a way to get us all out of here.

I'm still not very sure with what's going on and whether or not we're in a real Hunger Games, but I guess there's a large chance that they actually want a victor. I can't let that happen, though, because I can't lose any one of my friends.

I sigh. All the suggestions of how to get out of here are ruled out as quickly as they pop into my head, so I look around for some inspiration.

The rocky surface of the cramped cave—won't do much good, the green moss or algae or whatever that is that's stuck to the wall—ew, the trees outside—nah.

I face the wall of the cave and pretend to rest. Behind me, the others strike up a conversation, but I ignore them and focus on thinking.

I'm glad I found Darin and Joannie. Without them I doubt Ferrous and I would have made it that long. Now I finally understand what my mother meant by 'You're lucky enough you never have to' when I asked her if I had a chance to win if I were reaped in the Games. One in twenty four. All of them were so strong in their own way, even that geeky kid from the 74th Hunger Games had his mines.

_Mines._

I stand up so quickly all the blood rushes in my head. Then I turn to the others.

"—Peanut butter is the best thing invented since chocolate—" Darin enthuses, until I cut him off.

"Guys! I've got it!" I exclaim.

"Got what? And… is that a bruise on your forehead? That's so hilarious!" Darin laughs.

I cover up my forehead hastily with my hair and feel my cheeks warm up. "Shut up. You're just hallucinating again. And you'd better listen like your life depends on it, because it does."

"Alright, alright. I'm sorry. Carry on." Darin stops laughing and wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. But as soon as he stops, he bursts into laughter again.

"The leaves certainly made _him _overly joyful," Joannie remarks.

I pick up a tiny rock from the ground and hurl it at Darin's head with great accuracy.

"Ow!" he complains, and rubs his forehead. "You and Joannie really need to stop abusing me."

"Perfect," I grin. "Now you have a lump to match my bruise."

"I thought you said that was a hallucination!"

"Anyways, as I was saying," I continue, ignoring Darin, "I have thought of a way to get us all out of here."

Ferrous' eyes widen. "Really? Tell us!"

I sit down next to Ferrous. "Alright. In the 74th Hunger Games, there was a boy who dug up the mines from the cornucopia and reactivated them to use them as a trap. If we can dig up the mines from the cornucopia, we can work our way to the edge, set them there, reactivate them, and send the force field crashing down."

Everyone ponders at this idea.

"The cornucopia is in the middle of the arena. We need a few days to get back to the cornucopia, and we need even longer to walk to the edge," Joannie speculates.

"We can use a catapult and shoot the mines at the force field," I propose. "We just need to get back to the cornucopia and launch the mines to the sky."

"Where on Earth are you going to find someone who knows how to build a catapult, and more importantly—reactivate a mine?" Darin asks, still rubbing his forehead.

"Someone from District 3 or 13 might know," Ferrous suggests. "I heard at school that there's this really clever girl from District 13 who won the interDistrict inventing award. She's around the same age as me. She has an IQ ever higher than adults; and I saw her at the feast. What was her name again? Ellie… Ella…" Ferrous looks up at the ceiling and ponders.

"You mean Boggs' granddaughter Elysia?" I ask.

Ferrous snaps his fingers. "Yeah, that's it. Elysia."

"So we find Elysia, make her reactivate the mines and build a catapult for us and we get out of here," I conclude.

Joannie frowns. "How are you so sure she's going to help you?"

"I'm not. But it's our only chance," I reply.

Joannie shrugs. "Good enough for me."

"What does Elysia look like, Ferrous?" I ask.

"Black hair, ruby-rimmed glasses. Looks really pale and scrawny. I saw her photo in the school paper."

"You _read _the school paper?" Joannie asks, looking genuinely surprised.

Ferrous frowns. "Yeah. What's wrong?"

Joannie shakes her head. "Nothing."

As soon as we leave the cave, it collapses, like how it magically appeared when we needed it.

"That wasn't a hallucination, right?" Darin asks precariously.

"I don't think so…" Joannie's voice falters, and she shakes her head. "Come on. We have a girl to find."

I take a deep breath. I can't tell you how much I miss the smell of fresh grass and rain after having to tolerate the smell of blood for so long. The leaves of the trees glisten as the sun shines on them.

I look around the trees to see if I can find any signs of Elysia. Joannie nudges me, and points up at a tree. A little's girl's face with black hair and glasses pokes her head back in the tree as soon as she sees Joannie pointing at her.

"That's a little too easy, isn't it?" I ask, frowning.

Joannie shrugs. "She might've been following us."

I nod and we walk to the base of the tree.

"Fern, Darin, when I count to three we all shout 'Elysia' in unison," I say. "Ready?"

"1…2…3…"

"ELYSIA!"

The same little girl pokes her head out again. "Password?"

"Uh… Have you been following us?" I shout out to her.

She climbs down the tree with such agility while holding a tin can, despite the tree being wet and slippery from the rain; I can't help but feel impressed.

"Hi there," I greet Elysia, "I'm Lily, and this is Darin, Joannie and Ferrous." All of us wave awkwardly.

She squints her eyes at me, as if seeing if I'm trustworthy or not. I smile reassuringly at her. When I think she's going to say something really smart, she says, "what's with that weird-looking bruise on your face? Did you get it when you were running in the tar and hit a tree?"

"Sure, announce it to the whole world," I mutter. I consider throwing a pebble at her, but instead I smile.

"So you _have _been following us," Joannie says.

"Yeah. None of the other people are as funny as you guys are," Elysia explains.

I sigh. "Please, Elysia. We need your help."

"I know that," she says as she tinkers with her tin can.

"Right," I say. "So will you help us?"

"Sure. But I want one of those," Elysia says, pointing to Darin's backpack.

"No can do, little girl, we only have four," Darin says.

"Darin! Give Elysia you backpack," I tell him.

"But I _like _my backpack," Darin whines.

"Hand it over."

Darin groans but gives me the backpack and Elysia straps it on.

"Oof. It's too heavy. On second thought, you can carry it for me. But it's still mine," Elysia tells Darin.

I sigh. This alliance is going to be harder than I thought.


	11. Chapter 11

**Thank you all of my reviewers:) Here I am going to have a little shoutout for you guys, which I have never done before.**

**Yumni, Pinkatailmon: Thank you for your continued support from chapter 1:)**

**HermoineJMalfoy, randomgirl18: Thanks for your support too :D**

******Lolaag194**: **Finn shall be spared. Sorry I didn't answer your request on the previous chapter.**  


**Catnip851: Thanks for your eager anticipation for every chapter!**

**And all the others I can't include here because it would make it too long, thank you very much, too:)**

**And "Backpack Man" gag is inspired by Doctor Legolas' review. Credit goes to you, Doctor!  
**

* * *

"You know, your plan is unrealistic, right?" Elysia asks me while we're walking to the cornucopia.

"What?" I sputter. "What do you mean, unrealistic?"

"I can't build a catapult. Not that I don't know how, of course I do, because I'm so smart. It's that we don't have enough materials for it. We'll need loads of wood, hammers, nails…"

"WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME EARLIER?" I bellow at her.

Elysia shrugs. "I thought it'd be cool to hang around you guys and get free food and stuff. Plus, I get a personal backpack carrier."

"I am not your backpack carrier!"

"Hush, Backpack Man," Elysia shouts at Darin.

Darin is so outraged he can't even speak. All the sounds he manages to make are strangled noises and incomplete sentences like: "But I—" "But you—" "Ugh!"

"So why don't _you _think of a plan, if you're so smart?" I say to Elysia.

"Oh, I'm smart, alright. My DNA was genetically engineered so I would inherit the best of my family line. I could explain further, but I'm scared your tiny brain won't be able to understand." Elysia explains.

Now it's my turn to be so mad I'm speechless. "MY BRAIN IS NOT TINY! I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I'M ON TOP OF MY CLASS—"

Joannie pulls me backward and calms me down. "She's just a ten year old girl. She doesn't know what she's talking about."

"I am eleven years, three months and thirteen days old, to be exact. And I do know what I'm doing. What about you, Miss Curly French Fry Head?"

Curly French fry head? Is that what fifth-graders use as insults these days? I look over to Ferrous, but he just shrugs and shakes his head.

Joannie rolls up her sleeves, infuriated. "I'LL SHOW YOU, CURLY FRENCH FRIES!" It takes both Darin and I to restrain Joannie from knocking Elysia to another dimension.

"I say we leave her here and move on," Joannie snarls.

"Guys," Ferrous says in a hushed voice so Elysia can't hear. "We still need her. She might come in handy if we have an idea to escape.

I sigh. "Unfortunately, Fern's right. Which is why he will have the important occupation of keeping Elysia entertained so she won't bother us."

"Why me?" Ferrous whines.

"No generation gap," I reply, "now go."

Ferrous groans. He then plasters a smile and skips to Elysia.

"Got any new ideas to leave this place so we won't have to spend as much time with her?" Joannie asks, pointing at Elysia.

"No, but we should still head to the cornucopia, to see if anything useful is there."

"Maybe we can camp out there, like the Careers," Darin suggests.

"I only hope nobody beat us there," I mutter.

Darin nudges me, points to the tree on my right and says, "bird". I immediately know what he means. I take an arrow from my quiver and shoot two birds with it.

Joannie whistles. "Awesome shooting."

I shrug modestly and take down another bird. I never know what to say when people praise me.

I get the birds and pluck the arrows out of them. "Any ideas on how to cook these?" I ask, holding up my kill.

Ferrous rushes towards me, dragging Elysia along. "Oh goodie! Food!" he exclaims. "Oh, and Elysia is driving me nuts. Can we switch shifts?" he whispers, gesturing at Elysia.

Elysia removes her glasses and wipes it. When she puts it back on, she squints at me. "You are so much uglier in HD," she informs me.

"Wow, thanks," I mutter.

"I can help you heat that up," Elysia says, pointing to the birds.

Joannie raises an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Elysia gets out her tin can and pulls out several other electronic parts.

"Wow, where'd you get all that?" Darin asks.

"I found a torch someone dropped and I took it apart. Thank you for asking, Mister Backpack." Darin groans. Mister Backpack does not like his new nickname.

Elysia connects the wires to a set of batteries and the tin can, forming a closed circuit. "There. The tin can will heat up and it can fry your chicken," Elysia tells us.

"It's not a chick—oh, whatever." I decide that it's pointless arguing with Elysia, so I start skinning the birds. Darin helps. In no time the birds are cut in pieces, ready to be cooked. I put the chunks of birds onn Elysia's tin can. We take turns to eat. They're not entirely cooked, but still better than eating it raw.

We finish two birds and leave the third for later. For the first time in many days, my stomach actually feels satisfied.

I look around me. Tall trees, green grass, still so far away from the cornucopia. Probably need a few days to get there, if we continue this pace.

"Oh my god, Lily!" Ferrous suddenly shouts.

"What?"

"I FORGOT TO WATER SHELDON!"

"_Sheldon?_" Joannie asks.

"Sheldon is Ferrous' orchid. He seems to be pretty fond of it, because it's really rare or something."

"It's not just any orchid! I found it in the wild! Do you know how many orchids you get to find in the wild?" Ferrous wails.

"We've been in the arena for around a week and you don't remember your plant until now?" Darin questions, shaking his head. "You are such an irresponsible plant owner."

"Why do you even want a living organism? Robots are much better. No fuss," Elysia says.

Ferrous buries his head in his hands. "Sheldon's going to die because of me, and I'm going to have karma for it! Remember when I forgot to feed our pet fish and it died and I got bad luck for an entire week?"

"I _told _you, it was mere coincidence," I tell Ferrous.

"A mockingjay flew by and pooped on my head!"

"I looked at it and there was nothing there!"

"It's _my _head! I could feel it!"

"Shouldn't you be more concerned about our safety rather than your orchid's?" Joannie asks.

"Right, right. I hope mom remembers to water Sheldon," Ferrous sighs.

"If mom really were home, don't you think they would be doing something more important? Like, I don't know—rescuing us maybe?" I ask sarcastically.

"You don't care about Sheldon!"

"No, not really," I admit.

"I still don't get why anyone would name their plant Sheldon. What kind of a plant name is that?" Elysia asks.

"It's a nice name!"Ferrous protests.

"Let's stop thinking about Sheldon for a while. There's the pond we passed by before. Let's go take a break there," Joannie says, pointing to the pond. We wash our filthy faces and we refill our water bottles.

"Refill my water bottle, Backpack Man," Elysia orders.

"It's _my _water bottle!"

"No, I took ownership of it. Now fill it up."

Darin mutters something under his breath. I can't hear it, but I'm pretty sure it's not something nice.

I put my hand in the cool water and it calms me down. In the woods at home I would stick my hand in the lake and feel the water beating down on my hand. Once I used a generator to light up a light bulb using running water. Nothing as fancy as Elysia's tin can/grill, but I was pretty proud of it.

I pull my hand out of the water. A new plan hatches in my head, but I want to consult Joannie before announcing it to everyone, so I won't humiliate myself.

"Hey Joannie," I nudge her.

"Yeah?"

"Say I have all the equipment I need. If I use a generator and turn the energy of running water in the arena to electrical energy and direct it to the force field, would it shatter?"

She considers for a moment. "I guess so. This is the part where Elysia comes in handy, right?"

"Absolutely," I say and turn to the others.

"Hey. I've got another idea. We can use the hydroelectric power provided by the running water in the arena, and turn it into electrical power and aim it at the force field. You think you can do that, Elysia?"

Elysia nods. "But I've still got limited parts. We need to check the cornucopia for other gadgets."

"I can get back to Sheldon!" Ferrous shouts enthusiastically.

"That' right," I smile.

* * *

It's getting late so we camp by the pond.

"Hey, why don't we tell some ghost stories?" Joannie suggests.

"Oh, I've got a good one. I'll go first," Darin volunteers.

We sit in a circle but don't start a campfire. Instead, Elysia puts back together the torch to provide an eerie illumination. Darin puts the torch under his chin and starts telling the story.

"Once, on a stormy night—"

"Wait," Elysia says, "your nostrils look weird in the light. There. That's better." Elysia adjusts the torch.

"My nostrils are not weird! Anyways. Once, on a stormy night. A ghost creeps into a house, hoping to haunt the owner. Then, he opens the fridge…And eats the last peanut butter sandwich!"

Silence fills all around us. Someone coughs.

"That…wasn't scary at all," Joannie finally says.

"What's with you and your obsession with peanut butter?" I ask.

Darin shrugs. "I like peanut butter."

Then we hear some rustling noises. We turn towards the source and draw our weapons. A group of three walks out of a bush. There's a girl in the middle, leaning on the guy on the right. She looks seriously mauled. The guy on the left has an eye patch hastily made with a leaf.

"Enemies!" the eye patch guy shouts. "Wallie! Get Crystal out of here! I'll hold them off." Wallie and Crystal hobble away as quickly as they can, which isn't very quick.

"First, they're going so slowly I could just moonwalk there and kill them if I wanted to," Joannie says," and second, there's no way one of you can hold off all of us."

"Woah, we don't want to fight." Darin lowers his dagger.

Eye patch guy shouts a battle cry and lunges at the easiest target—Elysia, but she quickly slips away and I pin him on the ground.

He slashes at my arm and I cry out in pain. Joannie immediately rushes forward and grabs him by the neck and puts her knife up to his throat.

Eye patch guy squints his eye at Joannie. "Eden?"

She presses the knife more firmly on his skin, not happy to hear her real name.

"Eden! Eden, it's me, Melvin! Please, don't kill me!"

Joannie's eyes soften and she releases Melvin. Melvin pushes her on the ground and runs after Wallie and Crystal.

I rush to help Joannie up. She looks completely taken aback.

"Should we follow them?" Ferrous asks.

"No," Joannie says firmly.

"Who's Melvin?" Darin asks.

"He's…he's from my district. I haven't seen him in a while, and with his eyepatch, I didn't recognize him…" Joannie falters and stares longingly at Melvin, still making very slow progress at walking with Crystal.

I walk up closer to them, and with my good arm, hurl our last bird at them. They look so scared, so hopeless that I couldn't help myself. Wallie picks up my gift.

"You're welcome!" I shout at them.

"You should rest," I tell Joannie as I walk back to her. Everyone else looks at me in awe, as if I've done something crazy.

"No, I'm not tired. I'll help you bandage your arm and I'll take first watch," Joannie offers.

After Joannie wraps up my wound, I crawl into my sleeping bag. Ferrous is in his, next to mine.

"Good night, Fern," I whisper, though I know he's asleep.

"Sheldon," he mumbles in his sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

**I'm sorry I took so long to update. I kept rewriting and rewriting the chapter because it didn't feel right. I was going to write about Joannie's past, but I deleted it in the end. I might add it later.**

* * *

I wake up the next morning with Joannie still sitting there. Elysia is tinkering with her tin can. Ferrous and Darin are still asleep. The arena seems more peaceful than usual. Not as many birds are singing. The sun provides a warm ray of light.

"You've been awake the entire night?" I ask Joannie.

"Kind of. I couldn't really sleep," she replies.

"If there's anything you want to talk about, I'm here to listen," I offer.

"Thanks, but I'm fine. Wake the others; we need to hunt for more food," she tells me.

Joannie seems so different. It's like she completely changed. The mischievous look in her eyes is gone. Instead, it's been replaced by sadness and longing. I have a feeling that Melvin is a subject even more sensitive than her parents.

Joannie frowns. "Is there a reason you're staring at me?"

I didn't even realize I was staring at her. I quickly look away. "It's just that you look different," I explain.

"What do you mean, different? Come on, let's wake them up together." Joannie grabs my hand and leads me to them.

We attempt to shake Darin awake. But as we do that, bits of his drool flies on my hand.

"Oh, that is gross!" I shout, and frantically wipe my hand on the ground.

"Hmm?" Darin stirs in his sleep.

Joannie smirks. "I've got an idea." Oh, this is going to be good.

Joannie grabs a stick from nearby and traces it over Darin's sleeping bag. "Darin, get up! There's a snake in your bag!"

"WHERE?" Darin immediately gets out of his sleeping bag and runs around screaming, "Get it off me! Get it off me!"

Joannie and I roll on the floor laughing. We move on to Ferrous and jiggle him awake. He wakes and rubs his eyes. "Why is Darin running around?"

"Is the snake gone?" Darin asks. The side of his hair is sticking out, but I don't bother to tell him because it looks funny.

"There _is _no snake, idiot," Joannie says, rolling her eyes.

"But I felt it!"

"That was us. We used a stick." Joannie waves the stick around.

Darin scratches his head and thinks for a while. "Oh, I get it." Then, as if a light bulb lit up in his head, he says, "Hey!"

"A little slow, aren't we?" Joannie teases, tapping her head.

"I bet it's Lily's fault." Darin glares at me.

"How is it _my _fault?"

"You threw a pebble at my head!"

"Oh right, I remember." I chuckle lightly at them memory. "Yeah, that was funny."

"You slowed down my thinking," Darin insists.

"Nope, that's just you," Joannie says.

"Hey, we need to go. We need to reach the cornucopia as soon as possible," Ferrous tells us.

We agree and pack our things, ready for another long walk.

"I just remembered I haven't brushed my teeth in a long time," Ferrous says, smacking his lips.

_Gee, thanks for reminding me_, I think. Now my mouth feels all funny.

We walk in silence for a while until Darin says, "I still don't understand why you gave our food away."

I shrug. "I don't know. It just felt right at the time."

"They tried to attack us. They stabbed your arm. Seriously, what goes on in your mind?"

"They were defending themselves. I guess I wanted to prove that we weren't bad people." I shrug again.

"I think it was a nice thing you did," Ferrous says.

Darin snorts. "A little _too_ nice."

I look over to Joannie to see if she's uncomfortable with the conversation, but she shows no emotion on her face.

"What are you doing, Elysia?" Ferrous asks.

"I'm trying to make the generator, but I'm still missing a few pieces," she replies.

"What pieces?" I ask, glad the topic of the conversation changed.

"You wouldn't understand, stinky brain."

Oh, so she treats Ferrous nicely but she insults me. Good to know.

"Do you guys find it strange that only one person died?" Darin speaks up.

"I think the problem is that nobody wants to hurt other people," Joannie says flatly. I can't help but think that comment was directed at me.

"What about the girl that died on the first few days? Wasn't she killed by someone?" Elysia asks.

"She died because some bird mutts killed her," I inform Elysia.

She squints at me. I have noticed that she likes doing that a lot. "How do _you _know?"

"Her brother kind of told me," I confess. "Long story."

"I was there. Saved your butt," Darin grins.

"Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting because you remind me twelve times a day," I say sarcastically.

"Well, just in case you forget." Darin smiles.

* * *

A few days passed and I think we're almost there. Anticipation fills me. I wonder if my plan will really work.

"There's the lake!" Ferrous exclaims, pointing to it. He jumps up and down with excitement.

"Woah, calm down," Joannie says, but she's smiling too.

"So…we're actually going to make it," Darin says.

"Don't get your hopes up. We're still not entirely sure this will all work out," Elysia reminds us.

"Oh, shut up and lighten up a little. Of course it'll work. Even if it doesn't, we can still work something out." Joannie looks over at me and smiles.

"You think we can still keep in contact afterwards?" I ask.

"Obviously. We can call each other. We should meet up regularly," Joannie proposes.

"We can do this every week," Darin says. "Work together in the Hunger Games."

"Without all the hunger and thirst. And fear," I add.

"We can have an actual campfire and tell actual ghost stories," Ferrous laughs.

We can actually make it. The lake is getting closer by every step. Once we pass the lake, we will find the cornucopia and break the force field and get out of here. For the past few days, this just seemed like an impossible goal. But now, seeing the lake and the happy faces of my teammates, I truly believe that we can all survive.

We take a short break by the lake and test the water to see if it's fit for generating electricity. I stick my hand in the water and feel the current of it.

"It's not fast enough," Elysia examines. "We need to get to the upper reaches to see if the water is more rapid there."

I nod and study the water closer. There's something dark swimming around at the bottom…

Out of the water, a giant fish launches itself at me and snaps its razor sharp teeth. I yelp and bat it away. Its teeth cut my hand.

More fish spring out of the water. I've never seen this type of fish in my entire life. Dozens of these fish jump out and attack us. Everything I see is a blur of brown-scaled fish.

"They're piranha mutts!" Darin shouts.

These piranha—whatever they are, keeps jumping on us and biting us. Even out of the water, they seem to know how to breathe. I have no idea how that is even possible. I try to shoot down as many as I can with my arrows, but I have a limited supply of them. Soon, I run out of arrows. I use my quiver as a bat to hit the fish, but it proves to be of little use. I bite back a scream as a piranha chomps off part of my thigh. I feel hundreds of little teeth sinking in my limbs.

Joannie slices a piranha flying towards me in half with her knife. I only have time to murmur a short thanks before I have to dodge and hit more fish again. I look around to see if Ferrous is there, but I can't see him anywhere. He has no weapons. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Elysia swinging a short metal rod around.

"Ferrous!" I shout. "Where are you?"

"Lily, get out of the way!" Joannie pushes me to the ground. She screams as a piranha sinks its teeth into her chest. I hack at it and try to bat it away but it only sinks its teeth deeper.

Then, as if a voice is telling them that it's enough, all the piranha jumps back into the water, like their job here is done.

And their job is to kill Joannie.

Joannie falls over, her body twitching madly like a fish out of the water. I immediately rush over and cut off the fabric covering her wound. Blood trickles out of the teeth marks, but I think it punctured a lung, or even her heart.

I can't believe what I'm seeing. No, this can't be happening. The other three just stand there.

"What are you doing?" I shout at them. "Do something!"

They shake their heads sadly. How can they just give up on Joannie? We have to try something. She never gave up on us. We're a team. We help each other.

One of Joannie's twitching hands take mine. "Lily, listen," she says softly.

I turn my stricken face to her, and tears start spilling out of my eyes. This is my fault, I got distracted looking for Ferrous. This is my fault.

"Tell my parents…" she starts, and she gasps for air. "Tell them Eden wanted to please them. I failed." She gaps for air again. "And tell Melvin…I'm sorry." Her chest rises and falls rapidly as her body struggles for more oxygen.

"No," I say firmly. "Tell them yourself. You'll be fine." I know in my heart that she can't make it, but I refuse to believe it. She can't just give up on herself. This isn't the Joannie I know.

"Please," she pleads. Her eyes plead me silently to promise her last wish. I can't say no. I force myself to nod.

"Tell me…a story," she requests. "A bedtime story."

I wipe the tears form my eyes. This is all happening too quickly. Weren't we talking about how to contact each other after we leave just now?

I've never been very good with stories, but I need to try. If this is her final request, I shall grant it.

"Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a happy family."

Joannie closes her eyes contentedly. I continue with the story.

"She would go home every day and her parents would greet her with hugs and kisses. She would laugh and smile and dance around."

Joannie's body stops twitching and a cannon fires. I go on with the story anyways.

"She had beautiful brown hair and her name was Joannie. The end."

The story didn't make much sense, but I guess Joannie liked it. But I can't ask her if she liked it or not. She's gone to sleep forever. I uncurl Joannie's fingers from my hand and put them at her sides. I take her backpack and her knife. She would want me to have it. I brush her hair out of her face and say goodbye.

I throw Joannie's backpack at Elysia. "There. You can have your own backpack. You happy?"

I know it's not Elysia's fault, but I wanted to take my anger out on someone. Elysia looks frightened by my words. I'm not the least sorry.

"Lily—" Darin calls out, but I cut him off.

"Just leave me alone," I say and walk toward the cornucopia by myself and bandage my wounds. None of my wounds are very serious, only the one on my thigh deserves extra care.

I need some time to register what had just happened. I never expected any one of us to go. I thought we would all go home happily.

I remember that time where a panther was going to attack Joannie and a lion pounced on Ferrous, and I chose to save Ferrous. Of course, Joannie was all right in the end, but it still made me feel extremely guilty. Now she sacrificed her life to save me because I was distracted looking for Ferrous.

This is all my parents' fault. If they had sent us more items, gave us a little more guidance, this wouldn't have happened. All they gave us was a _picnic basket_. Did they think that just because they were tortured in their Games we deserved the same?

I look up at the sky and see a hovercraft coming to collect Joannie's body. I want to run over there and stop them, in case they made a mistake and she's still alive, but I know that's impossible. If I had arrows, I would kill the people carrying Joannie.

I look back to direction I'm heading to. I can see the shimmering body of the cornucopia. Once I'm out, I will be seeking revenge.

* * *

**I don't know if you're sad because Joannie died, but I can tell you I nearly cried while writing:( Unfortunately her death was foreseen a long time ago. HermioneJMalfoy, I honestly think that Darin and Joannie would have gotten together if she were still here.  
**

**Further explanations of everything (why so few people died, why was there a picnic basket) will be provided in Chapter 14. Please be patient and read on:)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Here we are, longest chapter so far. I hope you don't find it boring :/**

**There should be a Katniss POV next chapter.**

* * *

"You do know you're going the wrong way, right? We need to check the upstream waters first," Elysia informs me softly.

Saving my pride, I refuse to turn around. I lift my chin higher and continue walking. Besides, who cares if we're going the wrong way?

The pessimistic part of me tells me that this is all useless and we'll never make it out without Joannie. The fiery side I inherited from my mother tells me that I have to keep going for Joannie's sake and avenge her. I can't have her dying for nothing.

"Well, we can save it for later. It's not that far," Elysia sqeaks. I guess she got the message that if she bothers me anymore, I will explode.

I continue walking in front of the other three, constantly looking to the front. Surrounding the mouth of the cornucopia, are twenty-six metal plates, neatly aligned in a crescent shape. Seeing the cornucopia again reminds me of the first day I was in this stupid arena. Stupid me and my stupid ideas and stupid Ferrous.

The image of the golden horn is getting clearer and bigger by every second. I can barely look at it directly because of the light it reflects from the sun.

I step over the metal plates and make my way to the destination. Racks and racks of weapons and items are there. Even though most of them have been taken away, a large quantity still remains. I walk further into the cornucopia, knowing well that the most valuable items are in the middle. I nearly trip over some backpacks in the process.

As I move deeper in the cornucopia, exploring for bits and pieces I can use for my attempt to escape, I hear some noises coming from behind some racks of spears and knives at the very back. What could it be? Friends? Enemies? Mutts? I do what my instinct tells me—I push away any obstacles there are and embrace whatever the gamemakers decide to throw at me.

I push away the final rack and it reveals a tattered blonde-haired girl, probably around the same age as me, but I don't recognize her. Most likely she looks too ragged for me to identify her. My mind immediately dismisses her as no threat. The girl stands up shakily, pointing a spear at me and looks at me with her terrified eyes.

"D-Don't come near me. I'll throw this spear," she stammers.

I shake my head at how pathetic she is and grab her spear and toss it away. I point my knife up her chin and bark a single command: Scram. She nods and immediately runs away. I stick the knife back in my belt.

"That was really mean, Lily," Darin says, standing behind me. I didn't even notice he was here. I look past him and see Elysia and Ferrous searching for parts.

"I didn't kill her," I simply reply.

"She wouldn't have hurt you. You should have just let her go without terrifying her."

"You have no right to say that about me," I spit. "I treated Melvin and his friends nicely and you shouted at me."

"That was different."

"No it wasn't. Now hurry up and search for parts so Elysia can build that generator sooner."

"The walk to the edge is at least two days. We'll have to spend another night here anyways," Darin says matter-of-factly.

"Just hurry."

We walk around the cornucopia to find possible parts for the generator and the turbine. I find a coil of wire and some rope. I don't really know what good it'll be of, but I'm pretty sure it'll come in handy. I also come across a new set of bow and arrows. It's wooden, tipped with black, blue and red paint. Not as appealing as my previous silver ones, but should still look fine on my victim's neck.

"Found anything yet?" Elysia shouts, and I toss the coil of wire and rope to her. She has a handful of metal in her hands, so she fails to catch the stuff I threw. Doesn't matter. She proceeds on making the generator, occasionally stopping to ask for more scraps.

I rummage through some backpacks and ponder for a while. If the generator and turbine works, and the water upstream is quick enough, it should generate enough power to destroy the force field. My plan is to tie the wire connecting to the generator to the end of my arrow and aim it at the force field. When the wire touches the force field, it'll have electricity running through it, and the whole thing will shatter.

Nothing useful in this backpack. I fling away yet another backpack. There's no food in any of these backpacks. That's weird. How did everyone survive so long?

I turn around to look for Joannie to tell her about my observation. I whip my head left and right, but there's no sign of her. Then I remember—she's not here anymore.

I slump to the ground and hug myself. For that split second, I really thought she was still alive. The memory of Joannie leaves me feeling empty. I run my fingers through my hair until I find what I'm looking for—a white heather clip given by Ferrous. The clip, one beautiful and covered in small white flowers, is now smothered with blood and dirt. Most of the flowers have already fallen off.

I stuff the clip in my pocket. I don't want to have anything to do with it anymore. Both times I got distracted trying to help Ferrous, I put other people's lives in danger. It's time I learned to let my little brother go. He's not a little kid anymore.

"Hey," Darin greets me and sits down next to me.

"What do you want." I'm still not in the mood to talk to anyone yet.

"Look, I know you're upset, but sulking won't get you anywhere. This is the arena. We should stay alert."

"Wow. This is really convincing coming from a guy who drools in his sleep and can't even wake up after being shaken vigorously." I roll my eyes.

Darin takes a deep breath. "Just…don't be too upset, okay?"

"Whatever." Honestly, I don't really know what I'm feeling right now. Am I sad? Angry? Mournful? Maybe all three mixed as one. Just as I'm about to come up with a word to sum up my emotions, Elysia and Ferrous jogs towards us.

"All set and ready to go," Elysia announces, holding a rather complicated looking machine in her hands. We gather our belongings and head back to the lake.

Ferrous insists on holding my hand during our walk back to the lake. It's like he's trying to comfort me. Never before have I felt uncomfortable or guilty holding my brother's hand. I keep remembering how Ferrous distracted me in the piranha attack, and Joannie had to risk her life to save me.

"Don't be upset, Lily. Everything will be better," Ferrous smiles.

I don't know why I feel so offended by that sentence. "No," I snap and yank my hand away. "It won't be alright. Joannie's dead. And believe it or not, _I'm _the bigger sibling around here. I don't need your comforting."

I make the mistake of looking at Ferrous. His face is small and pale, consumed with hurt and fear. Much like Elysia when I shouted at her right after Joannie's death. His lower lip trembles. He's going to cry. Oh god, what have I done?

"Fern, I'm so sorry. Please don't cry. I don't know what came over me. Honest." I pull him in for a hug. He doesn't hug me back.

He wipes his tears with the back of his hand. "I know. I'm sorry I said anything," he sniffs.

"No, I'm sorry." I close my eyes and stroke his hair. When I finally pull away from him, I take his hand and give him a smile. He lets me hold it, but I have a feeling that I scarred our relationship forever.

Darin and Elysia are ahead of us. Ferrous and I have to walk a little quicker to catch up with them.

Darin glances at me and Ferrous. I'm guessing he has a pretty good idea about what happened. He raises an eyebrow at me. I think his eyebrow is asking me what's wrong. I shake my head, and he shrugs and turns away. I'm not proud of what I did just now, and I don't want to share it with anyone.

We arrive at the lake in silence and continue to head upstream. Fortunately, Elysia was right. The water is much more rapid here. She sets the turbine in the water and I watch in fascination as it spins round and round. Elysia takes the coil of water and unwinds some of it in the water.

"Alright. Water is an extremely good conductor, so it should give it more power. I'll be staying here to guard the generator in case anything goes wrong. Everything has to be right when you reach the weak spot of the force field." Elysia draws a plan on a leaf as she talks.

"Wait," I interrupt. "Where's the weak spot? Wouldn't it work if I direct it at any space?"

Elysia shakes her head. "Only the weak spot. It's around here," she says, jabbing at the leaf. "It's at our left. I saw it when I was following some other people. You know how to find the weak spot?"

"Yes," I reply. My mother told me about it. She called it 'the chink in the armor', a spot where you can see the force field falter slightly. I've never actually seen one before, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

"Good. Then you guys can leave now," Elysia says.

"Wait, what? You're staying here alone?" Darin asks.

Darin's right. She can't stay here alone. She's out in the open and she's an easy target. Someone has to at least watch her back. I know Elysia well enough to know that she won't cut the turbine or run off, because she wants to get out of here too. But she staying here alone is just too dangerous.

"Fine," Elysia crosses her arms. "Then pick one of you to accompany me."

Ferrous, Darin and I look at each other. We know that I have to go, because I'm the one who can shoot at the force field and spot the chink in the armor. But should Darin or Ferrous go?

"You can go, Ferrous. I can stay here," Darin offers.

"No, you're more of help to Lily than I am," Ferrous says. I think he's still mad at me.

Darin shrugs. "Well then it's up to Lily to decide."

Ferrous is right. Darin is quicker and can help me more, but he can also offer more protection for Elysia. Ferrous can't fight, but he has to stop every few minutes while running, so that will slow down the trip to the edge. Besides, when the force field blows, the explosion might hurt Ferrous. But I can't just leave him behind…

_It's time I learned to let him go._

I squeeze my eyes shut and make my final decision.

"Ferrous, stay here with Elysia. It's less risky. Darin, come with me." I take Joannie's knife from my belt and hand it to Ferrous. I won't be needing it anyways. I give him a hug and pull away before I start crying.

"I'll be back," I promise. "I'll contact you when I get there."

Ferrous' eyes light up. "How?"

I remember how my mother and Aunt Rue were able to tell each other that they were safe by singing a tune to the mockingjays and letting them carry the message.

I look around to see if there are any mockingjays around here. Surely, there they are, flying even higher than the tallest trees, way out of shooting distance. Some perch happily on the tallest branches. I whistle Rue's four-note song. The mockingjays stop to listen for more, but when I don't go on, they carry the tune and echo it across the woods.

"There. That's how," I say and ruffle Fern's hair.

Elysia shoves the wire in my hands. "Unwind as much of it in the water as you can. And don't trot off course."

"Aye, aye, captain," I say, and Elysia salutes respectfully to me. I give a small salute back.

"Ready to go?" Darin asks.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

Darin and I embark on our journey to the edge. We walk quickly, alternating between jogging and brisk walking, unwinding the wire on the way. Hopefully we can make it in two days' time. Everything around me is a blur, like I'm riding on a train. Despite my restless nights and constant hunger, my promise for revenge drives me faster.

On a train. That's how I felt ever since I entered the arena. Everything happened too quickly outside of me and I have no time to process the things I see. I don't have time to think, or even to feel. Because those feeling are constantly being replaced by new ones.

We fly through the woods in silence, until we decide that it's too late to travel anymore, so we set up camp.

"I can take first watch," I tell Darin as I lay out my sleeping bag on the ground.

He shakes his head. "I don't think I can sleep."

I sit down on my sleeping bag. "Well, that makes two of us."

We sit and watch the sky until we see what we've been expecting—a picture of Joannie in the sky. I miss her.

Something else clicks in my mind. There was no capitol anthem playing before the show the dead people's faces. They just appear in the sky. Did they play the anthem when Nada's picture showed? I don't think so. That's strange. In all the past Hunger Games, they would play the capitol anthem before revealing who died.

_Maybe they just forgot. _A simple explanation. I don't have time to think about these things. I have to focus at the task in hand.

"She's really gone." Darin's voice brings me back to reality.

I sigh. "I know."

"What do you think she would do if she got out?" Darin asks, gaze still fixed on the sky.

I shrug. "She would have gotten together with you, I suppose."

"She likes Melvin. You can tell."

I don't know what to think of his last sentence. He didn't sound jealous, just sad. But because he knows Joannie doesn't love him, or that Joannie will never come back, I don't know. I don't want to ask him. I'm not sure I want to hear the answer.

I look down on the ground to restrain myself from crying. I hate feeling so weak, wanting to cry over everything, but I can't help myself. Eventually, I nod off to sleep.

I had a dream that someone was stroking my hair.

I rub my eyes and see the misty grey morning. My neck feels stiff. I crane it to the other side, and it makes a cracking noise. I'm still in sitting position. What was I leaning on? I look to my left, and nearly scream when I see a wide awake Darin staring at me. I've been sleeping on his _shoulder_?

I blush. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep on you. You should have woke me up."

"That's alright. I dozed off a couple of times myself. I couldn't bring myself to wake you," he smiles.

I clear my throat. "We should get going." I pack my stuff and grab the never-ending coil of wire.

Darin sticks out his hand. "I can take the wire today. You had it yesterday." I nod and hand him the copper wire.

We fly through the woods again. We should almost be there, but the arena doesn't seem to end. Shouldn't there be a canyon, like in Haymitch's games? Maybe I miscalculated the distance. Hours pass and it's almost sunset. I don't want to spend another night here. I hope Darin and I didn't run off course, because if we did—

_Oof._

My head slams into and invisible force. I rub my forehead, hoping it won't form a bruise again.

Wait. _This _is the force field? I can see trees beyond it, but maybe it's just an illusion. I scan around to see if I can find the chink in the armor, barely noticing Darin's cries of how painful walking into a force field is.

There it is. A small square, wavering ever so slightly. There's no time to lose.

"Quick, Darin. Give me the wire," I instruct. He hands me it and I try to tie to at the end of my arrow, but ultimately Darin has to help me because he's the better knot tier.

I whistle Rue's four-note song and watch the mockingjays pass around my message until Darin finishes tying the wire to my arrow.

I take a deep breath. The small wavering square. The chink in the armor. One shot. I can't miss it.

I draw my bow, focusing on the target. Then I release my arrow.


	14. Chapter 14

_Bam._

The explosion of the force field sends me flying backwards, and my back slams into a tree trunk. My ears ring and I can't focus, and I stagger around while rubbing my temples for a while. "Darin!" I yell, but my own voice sounds distant and hollow. The ringing noise is too loud. I hope I'm not going deaf.

I shout Darin's name countless times, partly because I can't see clearly and I hope he'll find me, and partly because I want to test my ears to see if I can hear my own voice. All I can see is green grass and trees. Have I failed? Is the arena really endless?

I feel someone run towards me and I turn and see Darin plummeting toward me. Before I can react, he grabs my hand and yanks me forward.

"Wait!" I scream. "Where are we going?"

My ears are still ringing so I can't hear what he replied. "WHAT?" I ask.

"OUT!" he shouts loudly in my ear. Now it hurts a little. That can't be good.

"What about Ferrous? And Elysia?" I stop abruptly. "We have to go back to help them!"

"No time!" he shouts in my ear. "They should be running away by now!" He starts running and tugging me along again.

Suddenly, a dart shoots from behind and strikes Darin's back, which leads to his not-so-heroic fall to the ground. "Darin!" I shout. I bend down and try to take out the dart, but I feel a sharp needle burying in my back. I try and grab at it, but before, I can, I fall on the ground next to Darin.

* * *

Why is it almost every time I go unconscious, I end up in a new place?

Right now, I'm pretty sure I'm in a hospital room. The walls are painted a soft blue, and the room is a square shape, with my bed pushed to one side. My arena outfit is replaced with a hospital gown, and many needles poke in different parts of my body. I pull them all out. Who knows what this stuff is? All the scars and blood have been scrubbed away from my body. I run my fingers through my hair, and find it soft and clean instead of filled with bits of blood and dirt.

The door creaks open, and someone steps in. (Wait, I can hear. I'm not deaf!) I scoot closer to the wall, and brace myself for whoever that is.

The person flicks a switch on the wall, and a plush velvet chair springs up from the floor. He sets himself on it and crosses his legs. "Miss Mellark, you're awake."

That voice. I know that voice. I've heard it many times during celebration speeches and announcements. The last time I heard this voice, I fell asleep and got pushed to an arena. I narrow my eyes. "Camelon."

This is the first time I've ever seen Camelon in close-up, and I can tell you I don't want to see it again. Usually when he gives speeches in our district, he's standing far away and I can only make out his greying hair. I've never really paid attention to his facial features before. His dark eyes suggest that he came from the Seam of district 12.

"Now, now. There's no need to stare. I'm here to have a little chat with you," Camelon smiles.

"Chat? You killed Joannie! You put my brother and my friends in danger! Where are they? Why did you do it?" Many questions spill out of my mouth at once, and in anger, I hurl the closest thing to me at him, which is a pillow. The pillow rebounds in mid-air and hurtles back at me. It hits me squarely in the face, because clearly I was not prepared for fluffy pillows to come after me. I groan and bat away the pillow, and brush my hair out of my face.

Camelon chuckles, clearly amused. "I was hoping you'd throw something harder at me." I hiss at him. There's a force field between us, and I can't kill him. I should have known.

He leans forward in his chair. "Your brother and your friends are alright. But let me ask you a question."

I press my palms to my ears. I don't want to listen to that monster. Whatever he asks, I will refuse to answer him.

"Have you ever thought, how great this world would be, if you took control over Panem?"

This question takes me by surprise, and I lift my hands away from my ears. Of course I have. I can't ever keep track of how many times I have fantasized people chanting my name, calling me the greatest president of all time, how perfect everything would be under my command.

Camelon sees my expression and smiles. "I thought so. You see, you and I are not so different after all. I too believe that I can bring great fortune to Panem. You remember how great district 12 was under my control?" Camelon sighs dreamily. "Well, I can spread this gift to everyone."

"I asked you why you put us in the Games," I spit. "I have no time to listen to your yapping. Do you know how scared we were? How hungry and tired and thirsty we all were? You'd better start explaining, or force field or not, I'll rip your throat out," I threaten.

He tsks. "No need to get violent around here. Be patient, and I will answer all your questions. I never wanted to hurt anyone of you. I gathered you and put you in the arena as a show for your parents to see. I made them a deal—if they supported me as new president of Panem and agreed to my terms, you would all be unharmed, and your names would not appear in the reaping balls. But alas, they would not co-operate with me. Of course, I kept you all safe and alive."

I almost laugh at the thought of his last sentence. "Safe? Alive?" I snort. "We took care of ourselves back there and we survived on our own. And I thought of the escape plan."

Camelon laughs. "You really thought you did it by yourself? Your arrows could have never been enough to kill the mutts. I only wanted them for a show, so I let them die easily. If I had programmed them to kill, you would have all died a long time ago. I let you go on with your escape plan. I wanted to know if it would work, and just how clever you really were. Besides, I sent you the picnic basket, didn't I?"

_He _was the one would sent us the picnic basket? Back up. I stop to process this information for a while. Camelon took us and pretended to torture us to make some kind of deal with our parents to support him as president. He sent us the picnic basket and let us escape, because he knew he could easily capture us if the force field shattered.

"What was the deal? And what about Joannie? And Nada?" I ask.

"Ah, yes, the deal. I had three conditions—to not speak of this to anyone, to allow me to re-enact the Games, and to stop any protests in their respective districts. Too bad I can't just replace the people who defy me. People would suspect and they would tell on me. And for the unfortunate pair, their parents thought little of them and refused to accept my deal," Camelon grimaces.

"You want the Hunger Games to come back?" I cry. "You're insane!" Even so, couldn't my mother have agreed first, and then thought of a plan later? And why didn't they just run away or something? What parent would kill their child over some political issue? No, my parents would have done everything to protect me.

"The way I see it, the Hunger Games are a good thing. They act as a reminder to listen to your leader, and to never let your guard down. Being in peace makes people lazy and unprepared for sudden things. Just look at how unfit you children were in the Games! Except for you, of course, Lily, which is why I admire you so much. I could really use someone like you to help me after I become president. You'd make an excellent gamemaker. I've had several…ideas."

I don't like the way Camelon said "ideas". Or that sinister look on his face. But a job offer is not what I'm interested to know more about.

"What about my mother? Did she want to save me?" I ask.

Camelon cocks his head to one side and thinks. "Katniss Everdeen? Why do you care if she wanted to save you or not?"

"Because she's my mother. And I love her," I say matter-of-factly.

"Do you? Well, she certainly doesn't feel the same way. If she had loved you, she would have accepted my offer and saved you immediately."

Camelon's toying with me. That has to be it. _He's the one who put you in the Games_, I remind myself. Why should I believe what he says? Exactly.

"Lily. Have you ever found yourself being constantly compared to your own mother? Tell me. How many times have you been referred to 'Katniss Everdeen's daughter' instead of 'Lily Mellark'?"

I laugh. How many times I've been called 'Katniss Everdeen's daughter'? More than I can count, probably. The people in school call me that. The teachers call me that. Probably everyone who has ever met me call me that. And people compare me with my mother all the time. When I hit a bull's eye in archery, they'd say, "Very good, but your mother was always better." When I got a question wrong for geography, they'd say, "Never mind, your mother was never that good at geography either." I never thought much of it, but now that Camelon says it, I do feel that way. I'm never good enough because Katniss Everdeen is always better. My knuckles turn white as my grip on the edge of the bed tightens.

Camelon chuckles. "You're very intelligent, Lily. You're an original, and you shouldn't be compared to anyone else. Really, I could use someone as clever as you. You just think about it while you rest and heal in here."

He gets up and flicks the switch and the chair disappears. He opens the door, and before he leaves, I blurt out "I'm still going to kill you, you know."

His back is facing me so I can't see his expression, but I swear he's smiling. "I'll remember that." Then he closes the door.

* * *

_Katniss_

"Liar!" I shout as I watch Camelon talk to Lily. Who does he think he is, telling Lily he kept her alive and I don't love her? Garbage! He kept them alive so he could torture them for another day in the arena to let us see!

I have to tell Paylor to tell her to fake let Camelon be president and think of a plan to take him down later, but I'm chained up to the wall. I wanted to tell Paylor ever since I got captured, but I couldn't because Camelon was around and I couldn't go anywhere or contact anyone while I was still pinned up and there were force fields everywhere. Besides, the plan had too many flaws, and it was risky saying yes to Camelon.

Half of the parents already said yes to Camelon but half still stays strong. Peeta and I are one of the latter, along with Bogg's son and Joannie's father and several others I don't remember. I'll have to find them and discuss how to take down Camelon afterwards. I'm not sure if I can trust Joannie's father, though. He had a long, private chat with Camelon in another room before Camelon launched the piranhas that killed Joannie. I could swear Camelon and Joannie's father were both smiling when Joannie's cannon fired. Even if it is, I can't say no to him if he says he wants to help defy Camelon.

Right now, all of us parents have been separated and brought to different places. I was brought to this room with a single television screen to watch Camelon toy with Lily's mind. I don't know where Peeta or anyone else is. I don't know how Ferrous is. After Lily blew up the force field, Ferrous and Elysia ran but they got captured just like Lily and Darin.

"Lily. Have you ever found yourself being constantly compared to your own mother? Tell me. How many times have you been referred to 'Katniss Everdeen's daughter' instead of 'Lily Mellark'?" I hear Camelon ask Lily on screen.

I watch in horror as Lily's face changes. She's never felt compared to me before, has she? But the look on her face is all too familiar to me—hatred. I know that look because I used to see it in the mirror all the time. I've already forgotten about my old life so many years ago. The need for revenge used to flood through every part of me. Now I see the old me in my own daughter.

Didn't I use to hate my own mother for abandoning me and Prim after dad died? Now Lily probably feels the same way about me, thinking I abandoned her and Ferrous. I wanted desperately to help them, I really did, but I can't be that selfish as to put everyone else in danger as my family stays safe.

"I'll remember that." Camelon leaves Lily's room and the television screen shuts off by itself, not letting me see more of my daughter. My daughter, who probably hates me and blames me for everything now.

Camelon enters my room after a short while later. "So, Miss Everdeen. Ready to make a choice?"

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I have lived in peace for the past thirty years. But now everything is going to change. I have to fight again to protect my family and my people. And I'll have to take some risks.

"Yes. I will support you as president," I say.

Camelon smirks and flicks a switch on the wall and disables the chains tying up my limbs. "Very good. You may return to your district now. You have some announcements to make to them. I will promote one of my followers as temporary mayor of district 12." He turns to leave.

"Wait!" I shout. "What about Lily and Ferrous? And Peeta?"

"Didn't you hear?" Camelon says. "I offered your daughter a job. And for your son and husband, they will be sent back to district 12 as well." Camelon steps out and another woman dressed in black steps in.

"Hello, Miss Everdeen. I will be escorting you back to district 12," she smiles.


	15. Chapter 15

**I apologize for publishing this chapter later than usual. I've been very busy these few days:( I also apologize for the fairly short length of this chapter.**

**Thanks to HermioneJMalfoy for listing out my typos. I usually type too fast, and I don't notice my own mistakes. Sorry 'bout that. I've already corrected them. And thanks to pinkatailmon for betaing my story:)**

**I hope that I can publish the next chapter on my usual Sunday. I'll try my best:)**

* * *

A guy comes in as soon as Camelon leaves. He takes my blood pressure and sticks several needles in my arm, and writes something on his clipboard while I'm nearly dancing with impatience, waiting to get out of here so I can find Ferrous.

"Are you done yet?" I ask, fidgeting around on my bed. I don't really want to expose my escape plan with some guy who works for Camelon, so I can't exactly shove him and yell "get outta the way!" while storming past him.

"Not quite, Miss Mellark. You are extremely dehydrated and your blood sugar is dangerously low," he informs me, still writing on his clipboard.

"I don't care. I need to use the bathroom," I lie, desperate for a reason to get out of this room.

"Please keep quiet, Miss Mellark," he says, and looks up at me.

That face. And where did I last hear the line "please keep quiet"?

My jaw drops open as I remember who he is. Pointing a finger at him, I shout, "I remember you! You're that guy! That guy who I saw right after the feast where I got drugged and was tied up! And I wanted to punch you!"

He raises an eyebrow at me. "Is that so?"

I know this dude. Well, I've shouted at him before. No need to feel uncomfortable around him this time. "Where's Ferrous? Where'd you take him?"

He sighs and clicks his pen shut. "Your brother is fine. He's been sent back to district 12. You need to stay here and rest. I'm going to leave now, and I'll check on you later." He ignores any of my other questions and leaves the room with his clipboard under his arm.

Pfft. Stay here and rest. Yeah, right.

I yank out all of the needles he stuck in my arm just now. God knows what they're injecting me with. I climb down from my bed, and poke my head out the door, checking both ways to see if the guy is gone. I step outside and realize that I'm barefoot when my feet touch the cold, marble floor.

"…sent them to the train already, and 13-01 has been sent to the lab, but there are not enough rooms, so some of the others will have to wait, sir. I have also kept 12-02 in her room," a voice—from the guy who just poked needles in me, no doubt—says. I glance at the sign on my door, and there it in big black numbers read "12-02". I quickly step back in my room and press my ear against the door so I can hear.

"Have you turned the force field and the security camera on in her room?" a voice, unmistakably Camelon's asks.

Force field? I see no force field. I would have slammed into it if there were. I look around the room, but I can't see the chink in the armour. And the security camera in the corner of the ceiling is facing one side of the wall, avoiding me. Pretty bad security measures they have around here.

"Yes, sir."

"And keep an eye on 02-02. Track down Gale Hawthorne and his other son and bring him here. 02-02 shall wait for his father until he receives his turn in the lab." Camelon's voice grows closer.

"Sir, what about 12-01? Katniss Everdeen will still plan rebellion against you even if you send him back."

They're talking about my mother! If I'm 12-02, then Ferrous must be 12-01. They've separated us by our district numbers.

"Of course I know that. Keep 12-01 safe, though. I've already made some plans, and I sent a spy. Also, keep 4-02 alive. Annie Cresta is still quite unstable." Camelon's voice goes past my door and is growing fainter. Good.

Once their footsteps disappear down the hallway, I sneak out of my room and slip into the room next to mine, 12-01.

"Fern!" I shout as loudly as I dare; I don't want to arouse too much attention.

The bed in the room is extremely messy, like it's just been slept on. But except for that, there's no visible evidence that Ferrous is in here. I search around the room, but it seems that he's really been sent back to district 12. And Camelon said "keep 12-01 safe", so I'll just have to trust that he is. It's too risky to search around the building.

I go two doors to the right and search through 13-01. When there's no one there, I search 13-02, but they're both empty. I remember Camelon mentioning something about 13-01 outside my door, but I can't really remember. Maybe she's been sent back to her own district, too. Maybe they've all been sent back except for me.

I keep walking down the hallway and peeking through the rooms. Some of them still have people there, and I wonder why they haven't escaped yet. When I look into 10-01, I see Navin sitting in a corner of an empty room, arms folded in a straitjacket. His head turns to me and stares straight at me with those cold, maniac eyes. I've had nightmares about those eyes. I close the door with a yelp and quickly move on to the next one, peeking behind my shoulder to see if Navin is behind me, because I can feel his cold gaze on me everywhere.

I open 07-01, and see Melvin with a proper black eye patch, sitting idly on his bed. I knock on the door softly, and he diverts his empty gaze on me.

Something about his empty look frightens me, but Joannie told me to tell him that she was sorry before she died, so tell Melvin I shall. I clear my throat and walk into his room.

"Hello, Melvin." I wave awkwardly.

"Don't step any closer," he warns, just as I approach closer to him. "There's a force field."

So that's why nobody could leave. But why wasn't there a force field in my room?

"So…did you, uh, hear about Joannie?" I ask cautiously. I'm scared that he might have an emotional breakdown.

He nods grimly. "I saw her face in the sky."

"Well, uh, she said something about you before she…left," I say, searching my mind for the right words to use.

His eyes turn more alert, and curiosity replaces his emotionless gaze. "What did she say?"

"She said to tell you she was sorry," I say, repeating Joannie's words.

Melvin turns away from me again. "I should have forgiven her. I never got to see her again after I moved away." He takes a shaky breath. "I'd like to be alone now."

I nod in understanding and close the door behind me. I hear faint snuffles coming from the room I just left.

I keep walking until I find 02-02 and find Darin in it.

"Darin!" I shout in glee and almost hug him, until I remember that there's probably a force field there and restrain myself.

"Gah!" Darin shields his eyes. "What are you wearing?"

I look down on the white gown I'm dressed in. "What?"

"It's so see-through!" Darin exclaims, still covering his eyes, though he's peeking through his fingers.

"It's a hospital gown, and there's nothing indecent about it. And if you would cover your eyes properly, this wouldn't be a problem," I hiss. "Look, I didn't come here to have some stupid argument with you. I'm here to bust you out."

Darin raises an eyebrow. "Good luck with that. There's no water or tin can-generators around here to break the force field. How did _you _get out, anyways?"

"I was never locked in," I explain. I tell Darin about me and Camelon's conversation and the one I eavesdropped while I search for switches on the wall to deactivate the force field.

Darin's eyes widen. "Lily, this is perfect! You _have _to be a gamemaker!"

"What? No!" I cry. "I'm not working for that creep!" Sure I'm mad at my mother, but I'm not crazy enough to join Camelon and his forces of evil.

"No, listen. You're not _really _helping him. You just have to _pretend _to be on his side, so you can control the Games, analyse the situation, and take him down." Darin emphasises this point by swiping his hand through the air, imitating a knife. "You have to agree!"

"Woah," I say. "I don't _have _to do anything. I don't want to take down Camelon from the inside. I just want to reunite with Ferrous and go home, and forget that all this ever happened."

Darin clenches his fists. "How can you be so selfish? People are going to die, because Camelon's going to re-enact the Games! What if Ferrous gets reaped? What if one of your friends get reaped? Are you just going to sit by and do nothing?"

"First of all, Camelon promised our families would be excluded from the reaping if our parents help him. And besides, I don't want to get involved with any of this. I just want to live in peace, and lead a normal life."

"_Nothing _is ever going to be normal or peaceful again, Lily. You really think that you'll be safe? For all you know, Camelon could be lying to you. What about the other people in your district? Panem is going back the way it was before, and now you have a chance to stop it, and you won't even _think _about it?"

Darin has a point, but all this is too far-fetched. We don't even know if Camelon's going to be president or not. He might fail. Besides, I'm scared of going. I'm just a kid; why can't other people handle this for me? Why can't my mother handle this for me? Then it strikes me—she did. That's why we ended up in the arena in the first place.

"It could be a trap," I say. "What if he takes me and hijacks me or something?"

"Don't worry about that," Darin assures. "I'll watch your back. I'll find Ferrous and Elysia and tell your mom about this. . Camelon asked _you,_ so you need to stop a stop to all this. More people are going to die like Joannie did. Everyone has their loved ones. You have to help."

I sigh. "Yeah, I get it. No need to drone on and on."

I hear some footsteps outside the door and Darin and I instinctively turn towards it.

"Look, I should go, in case they suspect something," I say, backing away. "I'll come find you later."

Darin nods and signals for me to leave, and I do as he says.

"Remember! You have to help your people!" Darin shouts once more before I leave the room.

I close the door and run back to my own room. Sheesh.


	16. Author's Note

**Author's****Note **(No, this is not an update. Sorry.)

Hi guys. Thank you so much for 100 wonderful reviews, but I'm sorry to inform you that I might not be updating for a week or two.

I was going to update today, and I was writing smoothly in class—until my teacher saw me and confiscated my writing notebook. I made up an excuse that I wanted to "absorb Chinese culture" in my story (it was Chinese class) and so now I need to submit a story with Chinese culture elements to her. And I have tests the week after, so I have to focus on that.

Well, wish me luck. *goes to write story to submit to teacher*

-Savinanana


	17. Chapter 16

**I am so, so sorry for not updating for so long! I present you this non-existent cookie as an apology. I hope to update more regularly after my test.**

**Ps. Due to some reasons I am too lazy to explain, I will leave the chapter for the Author's Note sitting there. Hope it doesn't offend you or anything.**

* * *

I scramble back to my room, nearly tripping in the process. I sit on my bed, trying to hide the fact that I'm sweating and gasping for breath in case anyone comes in.

Nobody comes in after all—turns out I didn't need to jostle back in here. Doesn't matter—I didn't want to stay with Darin anyways, with him yelling "You have to save your people!" to me every five seconds. All that unneeded pressure. Not that Darin's point of view is wrong—it's just that after being in the arena for a while, I want some peace for a change, not going on a suicide mission. But I'm scared that I might have to do it anyways. Camelon might kill my loved ones if I turn him down.

I hear the doorknob turn, and I try my best to look devastated and helpless, like I've been stuck here all this time. The guy that tended to me before comes in, holding a tray in his hand. "Dinnertime," he announces, and sets the tray on my lap.

"Thanks, uh, whoever you are," I say, realizing I don't know his name.

"Clovis."

"Clovis," I repeat. I wait for him to go, staring at him, but he just stares back, standing like a bodyguard. He blinks. Ha, I win.

"You can eat," Clovis informs me, unaware that he just lost the staring competition.

"Uh, okay," I say, and inspect the contents of my dinner. There are mashed potatoes topped with gravy, and some fries on the right side of the tray. On the left sits some less-appetizing tomatoes and carrots, along with some cutlets.

I pick up my fork and begin to eat, my mind forming several questions that have been puzzling my mind for a while. I start with the simplest one.

"Why do you have to stand there and watch me eat?"

"Because," Clovis smirks, scratching his blond hair," I need to make sure you don't hide the fork and use it as a weapon."

I study his face, trying to figure out if he's being sarcastic or serious. I notice that he looks fairly young, perhaps in his twenties. I wonder what made him join Camelon.

Since I can't read his expression, I decide not to dwell on it and take a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Mm, this is good. I hadn't realized I was this hungry. I proceed on spooning more potatoes in my mouth, not giving an effort on looking lady-like. Table manners are for sissies.

"So is Camelon really gonna be president?" I ask, my voice muffled by potatoes. I want to know if Camelon will really become president, because if he doesn't, I don't have to worry about deciding whether or not to help Camelon.

Clovis flicks away a drop of gravy on his face, presumably caused by me talking with my mouth full, and continues standing in a dignified matter.

"Well, I heard Paylor's giving up her place for him to avoid conflict. Not exactly her style, but Camelon's probably too arrogant to be suspicious," Clovis shrugs.

I'm surprised he gave me such a thorough answer—I half expected him to say "Chew your potatoes in silence, Miss Mellark", but who's complaining? The fact that Camelon is really going to become president bothers me, though. I really want to turn down his offer and go home, but I'm scared I'll harm someone in the process.

_You'll harm everyone if you don't go. You can save lives if you work undercover for Camelon._

_Shut up_, I tell myself.

I gulp down my food and ask the next question. "So where are the other tributes?"

"Those whose parents agreed to Sir Camelon have been sent back to their respective districts, along with their parents," Clovis tells me, eyeing my plate.

At first I thought he was hungry, but then I realize he's waiting for me to finish so he can go. No way am I giving him that kind of satisfaction.—I still have plenty to ask.

"Then what about the others? What does Camelon do with them? And who else is left?" I ask while arranging a smiley face on my tray with my fries.

He frowns at

the smiley fry face, then answers," I think all the parents have agreed to Camelon by now. They'll be sent back to their homes, too."

"Then why does Camelon want me to work for him?" By now Clovis has lost all patience with me and has stopped standing like a bodyguard. Instead, he balances his weight on one foot and crosses his arms, still frowning at the smiley fry face.

Clovis sighs. "I don't know. Now finish your dinner, Miss Mellark."

"I'm on it," I say, take a fry up to my mouth, and chew it as slowly as possible. I'm actually enjoying this.

"So, where are we, exactly? Why hasn't anyone found us yet?"

"Beyond the borders of District 13. That's all I can say," Clovis replies.

"_Interesting_," I comment. "any chance of people coming to find us?" I destroy the smiley fry face and begin to arrange the fries according to their length.

Clovis shakes his head. "I don't think so. Even Paylor doesn't know about this place."

I curse under my breath. I was hoping Gale Hawthorne or someone else would find this place and destroy it, along with Camelon.

I can't think of anything else to ask at the moment—none that I can ask without giving away the fact that I left my room or eavesdropped on Clovis and Camelon, anyways. I quickly scarf the rest of my dinner down my throat and hand him back the plate. He sighs, relieved, and leaves the room. The lights turn off automatically after he leaves, signalling it's time for bed.

Despite being in Camelon's property, the comfort of a bed with a soft mattress and a warm blanket wins over my suspicions of this place. It's been a while since I've had a good night's sleep, and once I lay down, I fall asleep immediately.

I dream of seeing Joannie's ghost.

Joannie the ghost floats around, pulling pranks on random innocent people, throwing her head back laughing when she sees the results.

_This must be her dream come true_, my dream self thinks. To be able to pull pranks invisibly. I watch as she pulls some guy's pants down, revealing his blue teddy bear boxers. People all around him point and laugh, with Joannie laughing the loudest. The guy turns around, furious. He twists ghost Joannie's neck, and she screams as she disintegrates.

I wake up with a start. No one is screaming, though I can hear faint thudding sounds coming from outside.

_It's Joannie_, I think. _She's mad at me and wants to kill me._

I wrap myself more tightly in the blankets, and press my palms against my ears. After a while, the thudding is still going on, and it's turned more annoying than scary. I get down from my bed, and track down the source. It's coming from the room next to mine—13-01. I take a deep breath and push it open.

And there's Elysia in her hospital gown, pounding her tiny fists on the wall.

"What—are you doing?" I ask. "It's the middle of the night!"

"Trying to get out of here! What do you think I'm doing?" She turns around and squints at me. "How did _you _get out, anyways?"

I sigh. "I don't know." Maybe Clovis forgot to lock me in or something.

Clovis. Didn't he say something about the tributes earlier today?

"Elysia, where were you before you came in this room?" I ask. "You weren't here when I first searched the corridors."

"You _searched_ the corridors and you still stayed here?" she shakes her head. "You really are crazy."

"Where were you before?" I ask again. I'm running out of patience.

"I don't know," she grunts, resuming pounding the wall. "I was being zapped or something in another room, but I didn't feel anything. And it didn't last long. But that doesn't mean I don't want to get out of this claustrophobic place."

So her parents really did agree to Camelon. That's it. He has gone too far. I turn to the door, prepared to confront Camelon.

"Wait!" Elysia shouts. "Where are you going?"

"Making sure Camelon upholds his end of the deal," I mutter, and leave 13-01.

I walk around until I see a woman, and I holler and point at her, though she's well within speaking distance. I just want to shout.

"Hey, you! Where's Camelon?"

She looks at me, and scans me up and down, maybe thinking, _who is this idiot? _She takes out her walkie-talkie, says something in it, and then grabs my arm.

I follow her through endless corridors, and I keep hoping she'd walk faster. I want to slap Camelon in the face.

Finally—_finally_, we arrive at a door, and the woman opens the door for me. I step in, and Camelon sits on a chair, with thousands of computer screens around him. Some of the screens show empty rooms, some are filled with busy people. A rectangular table is placed in front of him, and I take a seat opposite him.

He looks at me and frowns. He turns back and reaches a jacket, and tosses it to me. "You look cold." I blush, clear my throat, and put it on.

"So, you wanted to see me?" Camelon smiles.

"Yes," I say. "Elysia is still in her room. I thought all the parents already agreed to you. You should have let them go a long time ago."

"Now, I don't know how you managed to get out of your room— Clovis told me you were locked in. Nevertheless, I assure you that they will be sent back to their homes. The train has just arrived for them, and they're being led to it right now. Look." Camelon inches to the left, revealing several screens, and I see the tributes being led out of their room and to a train in another screen.

"What about you? Are you still up on the job, or do you want to go home?" Camelon asks.

"You—you mean I can go home?" I ask, unable to believe my ears.

"Of course. I offered you a choice, and I will respect it."

"So, if I go, everyone will still be safe? Ferrous? Elysia? Darin?" I ask. Camelon nods.

I take some time to swallow this information. I can go home. Then I can make my decision.

"But can I sit in a private compartment? I, uh, don't really want to talk to anyone," I request. I don't want to see Darin and let him know I didn't choose to stay.

"Sure. All the train compartments are separate. You won't run into anyone else," he says, then calls someone from his walkie-talkie. "Clovis will bring you to the train soon. Just remember to show up at my inauguration. Details will be provided later."

I nod, and Clovis comes in after several minutes. He bows to Camelon once he sees him, and Camelon nods politely.

"Bring Lily to the train to District 12," Camelon orders.

Clovis blinks, like he doesn't understand what Camelon is saying. "But sir, I thought she was—"

"Yes, yes. But unfortunately she turned down the offer. Let her be." Camelon waves a hand, and turns his back to Clovis. Clovis looks at me and frowns, almost like he's disappointed in me because I chose to go home. For what reason, I don't know.

I give Camelon back the jacket, and Clovis brings me some clothes—my clothes, the ones I wore at the Peace Feast, and I change back into them, and let Clovis lead me to a lift. He presses a button, and we stand uncomfortably around each other, with cheery elevator music playing in the background.

We finally reach our destination floor, and Clovis ushers me to where I should sit. He leaves without goodbye, and I'm left sitting there alone, heading home.

I stick my hands in my pocket in boredom, and find that my half-mangled white heather clip is in there. Maybe they took it out from my arena jacket and put it there. I sit there with it, stroking it gently, like I would stroke Ferrous' hair.

I'm safe—for now.


	18. Chapter 17

**First, I would like to start by thanking Kaizen Kitty for her review. Yes, it seems that I had made a terribly large mistake in chapter 1. I wrote that Ferrous is older than Lily, and that is wrong. Lily is older than Ferrous by three years—Lily 14, Ferrous 11. Ferrous is a happy little boy, and Lily is, well, Lily. **

**Second, some of you requested to see more of Darin, so more of Darin you shall see. But you won't see him until a few chapters later.**

**Onto the interesting (or not) stuff!**

* * *

_Katniss POV_

Peeta, Ferrous and I sit around our square dining table, discussing our next motives, now that we're back in district 12. We sat on the train together, and arrived home a few hours ago. We had to endure Ferrous' wild stories about the arena on the train, like how he batted away swarms of piranhas himself (half-lie), how he comforted Joannie and gazed into her eyes as she passed (a rather disturbing lie), and fought away a lion single-handedly (complete lie). Now, Ferrous has finally run out of stories to tell, and I can tell Peeta about what Camelon showed me.

I quote what Camelon had said to Lily, and tell Peeta how persuasive Camelon was—how Lily really looked like she hated me. While I talk, bubbling with anger as I remember the horrible things Camelon told Lily, I notice that Ferrous pulled out a lily plant out of nowhere, and is talking to it. I frown, wondering if this is an excusable behaviour for an eleven-year-old, but I guess he misses his elder sister.

_Lily. _I sigh, hoping she's alright. It really should be Lily I'm worrying about. She was always a bit bitter, and she doesn't have many friends. Then I remember those characteristics used to belong to me, too. Would I have joined Camelon, given the same circumstances when I was as young as Lily?

No. I knew how to hunt to make money—and I would have never left Prim alone. Lily would never leave Ferrous alone, either. I wonder where she is now, and what's taking her so long.

"Katniss," Peeta's gentle voice brings me back to reality. "You were telling me what happened after you saw Camelon talk with Lily." His blue eyes stare into mine, and for a brief moment, we're both 16 again, fighting to survive, plotting our tactics with Haymitch.

"Right," I say, clear my throat, and begin talking again. "Camelon came up to the room, and asked me if I would help him, and I said I would. I decided that I could phone Paylor and tell her everything afterwards, and Lily and Ferrous could be temporarily safe. If Lily doesn't join Camelon, that is."

"Lily's not going to join Camelon. She's not stupid," Peeta says firmly.

"I know. Anyways, a woman came to bring me to the train, and while we were walking, another person—he called himself 'Clovis'—said 'he'd take it from here'. He told me he was actually working against Camelon. Owed Camelon a favour or something, and that was the only reason he helped him. Anyway, Clovis said I could trust him, and he wants to rebel against Camelon with me.

"I didn't tell him that I was going to tell Paylor to give up her place for Camelon, but I asked Clovis to tell the other rebels to agree first, and we'll plot something together later. I also asked him to let me see you, Ferrous and Lily, but he said Lily would be released later because Camelon wanted to give her more time to think whether or not to join him, and there's nothing he can do about it, so I told him to keep Lily safe. That's basically it."

Peeta's brow furrows, the way it does when he thinks. "How are you so sure you can trust this 'Clovis' guy?"

"I'm not. But he did let us sit together in the train, and he didn't tell Camelon we were plotting to rebel. Besides, I needed someone to tell the others to save their children first," I answer.

"Did Paylor already give her place to Camelon?" Peeta asks.

I nod. "I called as soon as we got home, and she agreed with me."

"So did the others know you were going to phone Paylor?"

"I'll phone them later, though I'm still not sure we can trust district 7's mayor. You know—Joannie's father." I add, seeing Peeta's slightly puzzled face. "I don't have a good feeling about him."

"We can deal with him later. Right now we—"

Peeta is cut off by a sharp knock on the door. I rush over there, hoping it's Lily, and it is. I hug her, relieved that she is safe. She stays limp for a second, and then returns the hug.

"Lily! I thought you went to work for Camelon," I breathe and pull away. I'm so glad that she's here, and she still loves me.

She grimaces; her face filled with pain—or is that guilt? She didn't accept the offer, right? Then why does she look ashamed of something? Did Camelon send her to spy on me?

No, this is your daughter you're talking about. She wouldn't do such a thing.

She ignores me, goes to give Peeta a quick hug, and gives Ferrous one.

"I'm so glad you're safe, Fern," Lily tells Ferrous, ruffling his hair.

"Me? You weren't here when I came home! I thought you went home first after you destroyed the force field! I had to annoy myself all day!" Ferrous exclaims, holding up the lily, and shaking it for emphasis.

Lily laughs slightly, and continues talking to Ferrous, asking him what happened after the force field crashed. Watching Lily and Ferrous always makes me miss Prim. Ferrous is different from Prim in many ways. Prim was always more level-headed, and she talked as if she were older than she actually was. Ferrous resembles what a child should be, happy and carefree. How Prim should have been.

Lily walks up to me suddenly, and informs me, "Camelon says everyone agreed to help him, and Paylor gave up her place for him. He's going to have an inauguration soon."

I nod; glad that Cloivis helped me spread the message, and kept Lily safe.

"Do you think we ought to call Beetee? Or Johanna?" Peeta asks.

"No, I don't think we should bother them," I say. Besides, I haven't contacted them for so long. The last time I called up Beetee was a few years ago, when the bow he made me needed repairs.

"How's Annie?"

I shrug. "I'm not so sure." The whole time we were watching our children participating in the Games, Annie never said a word. She occasionally screamed when her son, Finn, was being attacked. But otherwise, it seemed like she was in a trance—I don't think I ever saw her blink.

"So how's Sheldon?"" I hear Lily ask.

Ferrous' smile falters. "Oh, he didn't make it. But that's okay."

I frown, trying to remember who Sheldon is, but when I can't recall anyone being named that, I ask "Who's Sheldon?"

"Sheldon is—was—my orchid," Ferrous explains. "I couldn't water it the past week, because, well, I was too busy looking for water myself."

Lily groans. "Don't even remind me about it."

It bothers me about how easily they can talk about their time in the arena, even though it wasn't truly real. For me, I kept having nightmares afterwards, and it was difficult to think about it. Perhaps because I lived in a different time, or maybe Lily and Ferrous had each other, and that made things a little easier.

Feeling a weird sense of anger, or possibly jealousy, I shout, "Lily, Ferrous, up to your rooms. Your father and I still have things we'd like to discuss."

Both of them open their mouths to protest at once.

"I want to know what's going on!"

"You let me stay just now!"

Peeta tuts. "Let them be, you wouldn't have been very happy if you were kept out of something important, either."

"Fine," I snap. "Both of you can stay."

Lily and Ferrous grin and each other. How can they be so happy when they were just starving a few days ago?

I sigh. "We need to plan an attack at the headquarters of Camelon's forces," I say, drawing up a sketch.

"We don't even know where that is," Peeta says. "Plus, what are you going to do? Kill them all? That's illegal."

"It's outside the borders of district 13. Anyways, Camelon killed Joannie, didn't he? And Nada. He deserves death," Lily spits, and crosses her arms.

"How do you know where the headquarters is, Lily?" I question.

"Clovis told me."

"How do you know Clovis?" I ask again.

"He brought me food."

"Nobody brought _me _food," Ferrous says, in a jealous tone.

"That's because you're round and soft in the middle," Lily says, poking Ferrous' tummy.

"I am not!"

"You keep telling yourself that."

I sigh and turn to Peeta as Lily and Ferrous argues and pokes each other in the stomach.

"So we'll ask Paylor to send a hovercraft and an army to search for Camelon outside 13," I propose.

"That's too much of a waste of resources. We don't know for sure Camelon is outside 13," Peeta says.

"But it does make sense, though. The train ride to district 13 is only an hour, so it'll probably only take two hours to the outskirts of 13. He could have easily gone to and fro the headquarters," I say.

"Still, I don't think we need an army to take them down. Just you and a bow and arrows will be enough," Peeta smirks.

"Or you with a sack of flour," I smile back. Peeta laughs.

"Lily says there's going to be an inauguration, right? We can just assassin him, then," Peeta says.

"I thought you said killing is illegal," I say, and cock my head to one side innocently.

"I just said it to make sure you wouldn't do anything stupid. Besides, with the things we've faced together, Camelon is small fry."

I think back to the time when I had to struggle to keep my family alive and battle the Capitol. I am not the little girl who had to rummage through trash cans for food, and my family is not starving, but Camelon did manage to get his hands on my children and harm them. I will not forgive him for that.

"I'm not going to underestimate him," I say at last.

Peeta smiles warmly and takes my hand. I nearly wince at the sudden warmth his hand brings. His hands are still calloused from when he used to bake bread all the time, but are still as strong as when we were young. His hands are tough, but they are where mine belong. Thirty years, and I still don't think I deserve him.

I catch Lily rolling her eyes and Ferrous making gagging motions at the sight of me and Peeta holding hands. I clear my throat loudly, but keep my hand firmly clasped with Peeta's.

"So that's settled, then," I confirm," we capture Camelon on the day of his inauguration. I will tell Paylor." I rise from the table, releasing Peeta's hand. I mock glare at Ferrous, who is still pretending to puke. He sits up straight immediately, grinning.

I sigh, smile, and shake my head. I punch Paylor's number on the phone. I still don't believe, after so many years, I still have Paylor's number memorized in my mind. The line rings twice, and Paylor picks up.

"What is it, Everdeen? What did Camelon do?" Hearing Paylor's urgent voice, I realize that I had frightened her.

"Nothing happened," I say, and I hear Paylor sigh, relieved, over the line. "Lily told us that Camelon's going to have an inauguration soon, and we can get him then."

"Yes, I heard. It'll most likely to take place tomorrow, at the Square in district 12. I'll send you some of the generals of the republic to help you out. I already contacted some of the old rebels to help."

"Are you sure?" I say, and frown. "They've gone through enough—they deserve a chance to rest."

"It's you, Everdeen, who deserves a rest. But yes, they've agreed to help. Beetee is tracing down Camelon's headquarters. If there's anything else you need, just call," Paylor says.

"There's nothing else I can think of right now. I need to call the rebel parents from the other districts, and tell them that I contacted you. I think they'd like to know."

"Rebel parents. That's a nice name. Keep in contact, Everdeen," Paylor says, and bids me goodbye.

I put down the phone, and start searching for my phonebook. I remember the other mayors exchanged phone numbers with us at the second Peace Feast, and I've written them down somewhere…

I look around Peeta and I's bedroom, and I dig through the drawers until I find the heavy notebook. I flip through it until I find their names—but I don't have all of them. Some districts changed mayors since the second Peace Feast. I phone the ones I have, and repeat the same message, "I phoned Paylor and she gave up her place for Camelon to avoid conflict. We've planned on capturing him tomorrow at his inauguration."

I reach the end of the list—district 7's mayor. I avoided calling him, and I'm still wondering whether or not I should keep him informed. At last, I decide to trust my instinct, and not call him.

"Katniss," Peeta's voice draws closer to me. "It's nearly midnight. You should get to sleep."

Nearly midnight? I look at a clock, and he's right. I didn't realize it was so late—no wonder the people sounded so grumpy when I called them.

"Lily and Ferrous are in their bedrooms, and you should be too," Peeta tells me. "It's been a long day."

I nod, suddenly realizing how tired I am. I change, and crawl into bed.

_Doesn't matter if I have nightmares, _I think as I nod off to sleep, _Peeta will be there._

Next to me, he snores, indicating his presence, and I smile.

* * *

**I apologize if you think Katniss is a bit OOC here, because it's been a while since I've reread the books, and Katniss is forty-something here. Just wanted to remind you of that. Love you guys! **


End file.
